Another excellent column. Thank you Salon.

I have a high regard for the fighter pilot cowboys (and cowgirls). Their instincts are to push the safe operating envelope to the limits all for the purpose of killing, rather than being killed by, the enemy. For those select few, with the right stuff, thrill is addicting and there is no getting enough. There are those who would tell Mr. Smith that he ain’t seen nothing until he’s done everything that he did plus begin it and end it on the rolling flight deck of an underway aircraft carrier with a high sea state.

But, if I had anything to do with it, none of those military pilots would ever see the left hand seat of a commercial airliner.

Take the actions of Mr. Harry Daye, the Air Force veteran and flight instructor for the ride in the F-4. What is his reaction when he hears the muffled banging noises coming from the starboard engine.? A mumbled “That’s weird”…, then he proceeds to ‘trouble shoot’ the problem with out the slightest regard to the presence of his passenger. It’s a good reaction for a test pilot whose job it is to get in harms way. It’s a piss poor reaction for a man who ostensibly is trusted to fly commercial aircraft and who is currently flying with a client.

Precisely such reactions have lead others to crash an aircraft full of trusting passengers. Notable examples, the crew of Alaska Airlines flight 261 who proceeded to ‘trouble shoot’ a failing trim system problem, running a failing jack screw to complete failure, and flying their paying customers upside down into the drink off the coast of California. Eighty-eight fatalities. Or take Captain Robert Loft of Eastern flight 401 who became fixated (along with his cockpit crew members) on trouble shooting a failed light bulb on the panel while flying his fully functional L-1011 Tristar right into the Everglades. Ninety-eight fatalities. Ok, yea, there were other extenuating circumstances blah blah blah; but these are essentially the facts. These examples are, unfortunately, illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Those who maintain the military fighter pilot mentality are not only the type of individual who will tweak to trouble shoot, but they will be prone to test the limits. They are also the type who can collapse under the pressure of boredom falling into the trap of complacency.

Commercial airline pilots, the people to whom I am trusting my life, should be fully knowledgeable and appreciative of the physics, mechanics, and complexity of the massive equipment they are piloting. They should be intimately familiar with the limits of the safe operating envelopes of that equipment, and they should have a razor instinct to stay as far from those limits as possible under even the most extreme of situations.

No ‘trouble shooting’ please.

Actually the facts in my previous letter are quite correct, so the accusation below should not stand unchallenged.

True, mechanical failure was the primary cause of the accident. However, one of the sad lessons that was learned after analysing Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was that getting the plane safely on the ground rather than troubleshooting the mechanical problem should be the crew’s priority. It is likely that the crew could have flown the aircraft with a jammed trim system to a safe landing. However, because they elected to perform a series of attempts to mechanically override the trim system, catastrophic failure of the jammed system was the result.

I refer to the following report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2002/AAR0201.pdf

In Section 2.2.5 “Flight Crew Decision-Making“ (primarily subsections 2.2.5.4 and 2.2.5.5) The Safety Board concluded that the crew went well beyond what was called for in the Alaska Airlines’ checklist, and that their attempts to trouble shoot the problem likely worsened the situation. Furthermore, as a result of this incident, the Safety Board recommended that crew guidance be strengthened to indicate that in such cases if the checklist procedures do not result in an operable trim system, the flight crew should always immediately land at the nearest suitable airport, and they should refrain from attempting troubleshooting measures beyond that provided in procedure checklists.

Aviation engineers are famous for wanting to design the man out of the loop. When the earliest Mercury astronauts were preparing for missions in space, there were genuine battles over how much of the aviation tasks should be left to the human(s) on board and how much should be automated. Avionics have since that time been designed to keep the man in the loop. Emphasis has been placed on improvements in cockpit display and control that reduce peak task load and enhance situational awareness.

After all, the Captain of a ship is never mired down with the lowly personal task of actually setting the throttles and steering the ship. Yet it is he or she that is in constant control, delegating authority, while maintaining responsibility and always fully aware of all aspects of traffic, cargo, schedule, and safety. The modern automated cockpit has indeed transformed the job of pilot. But, ironically, not by replacing him or her, but rather ensuring that the airplane is commanded by a Captain, not just driven by a lowly helmsman.

For those who are unconvinced of the need for having a “Captain” on the “ship” I would recommend reading Captain Al Haynes personal account, as pilot in command, aboard United Flight 232 when the DC-10 he was commanding experienced a total loss of all hydraulics.

http://www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/ua232.shtml