Page 20 - Nov 2015 Volume 9, Number 11

Twin Proficiency:ProceduralNoncomplianceby Thomas P. TurnerWhen I was a young officer in the U.S. Air meeting, where he highlighted “a safety problemForce, we often discussed the differencebetween “doing things right” and “doing the right thing.” If you’ve ever been a small part of a large bureaucracy (and the military office corps is nothing if not a large bureaucracy), you can probably understand the distinction: “doing things right” means following directives and procedures, regardless of their effectiveness or outcome, and “doing the right thing” means working to achieve a desired outcome, even if that means taking a shortcut or stretching the limits of formal directives. Whether you value doing things right or doing the right thing is a matter of your personal viewpoint, and often determines your level of success in the organization. As you gain more experience, you probably find, as have I, that the line between the two is not always easy to discern.In flying a single-pilot airplane, we are challenged to do things right, and do the right thing, every time we fly. Luckily, in flying, the result of not meeting the goal of a safe flight and a safe arrival is pretty obvious, so those procedures and guidance that exist are overwhelmingly realistic and easy to follow. Doing things right means doing the right thing, and vice versa – as they say, the “regulations are written in blood,” i.e., most flying rules and limitations came from situations that resulted in a crash. Troubles (and mishaps) usually occur when the pilot does not follow established procedure. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), FAA and industry call failing to do things right procedural noncompliance.NTSB Member and pilot Dr. Earl Weener recently spoke at a Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST)18 • TWIN & TURBINE[NTSB] sees emerging from our accident investigations: failures of procedural compliance.” Procedural Compliance is on the NTSB’s Most Wanted list of critical transportation safety improvements for the current year. “During investigations,” Dr. Weener states, “we too often find that pilots have deviated from or failed to follow procedures related to flying stabilized approaches,... maintaining a sterile cockpit [environment], monitor[ing] critical flight parameters, including airspeeds, or heed[ing] aircraft limitations. Our investigations have discovered missed or incomplete preflight briefings, checklists and callouts.”At the recent NBAA convention’s National Safety Forum, NTSB Chairman Chris Hart cited the investigation of a Gulfstream G-IV crash on May 31, 2014 at Bedford, Massachusetts that killed all seven aboard. Investigators blamed the crash on the crew’s attempt to take off with the control lock engaged. Analysis of the flight data recorder revealed the crew had not moved the flight controls through a pretakeoff control check in 173 of the 175 most recent flights. Clearly, this is an example of procedural noncompliance, according to Chairman Hart.Although the NTSB’s focus on procedural compliance (and noncompliance) is targeted specifically at the airline and corporate aviation community, it has direct bearing on single-pilot operators as well. If the full-time professionals acting in two-person teams are failing to do things right (and therefore, to do the right thing), I suspect those of us flying without another pilot providing oversight are even more likely to deviate from standard operating procedures.JANUARY 2016