The first time I ever touched the controls of an aircraft was in a glider over Durango, Colorado, when I was 16. The next time was in a DC-10 when I was 19 (I had won a free hour in a United Airlines simulator). I was bit by the flying bug, but it would take several years for it to develop into a passion that would lead to a career. The first powered aircraft I flew was a vintage Cessna 172 with a six-pack, a DG that required regular adjustment due to mechanical precession, and a whisky compass that could get you reliably within 20 degrees of your intended course.
Training was a different animal then too. The most difficult thing on an instrument rating was figuring out an NDB hold on a fixed card ADF. That NDB stuff actually came in handy when I found myself flying Beech 1900s around Montana in 2010. Navigation in the trusty BE-1900 was purely a ground-based affair, utilizing VOR/DME, cross-radials and bearing pointers. RNAV overlays were gradually picking off the worst of the non-precision offenders, but our 1900s weren’t equipped for them. The year that I spent in Montana produced 80 percent of the missed approaches I’ve had to do “in the heat-of-the-moment.” You almost never go missed from an ILS.
Prior to my time in Montana, I found myself flying around the West Coast after the Colgan crash in February of 2009. Initially, all we knew was that the tragedy had occurred in icing conditions while on approach to Buffalo Niagara Airport in New York. I remember watching the coverage of it before catching the hotel shuttle to the airport. On my third leg of the day, we were bumping around in the clouds at 20,000 feet when I selected prop heat on. I soon noticed the prop amps cycling between the normal range and zero. On the multi-engine Beech 1900, this meant that one set of propellers was not deicing. I requested a climb to FL250 (the max altitude for the 1900) in the hopes of getting on top. I briefly considered a diversion to San Diego where clear skies prevailed but managed to get a pilot report below that indicated that lower altitudes were clear of icing. I ultimately decided to continue to our destination.
That Colgan crash (stretching across better than a decade) would result in Congressional hearings, hand wringing, finger-pointing, and a deeply expansive set of new rules that governed everything from duty time to extended envelope training (EET). At the same time as this was happening, Part 121 training was in the midst of a dramatic shift in theory. The airlines were gradually rotating away from the 121 training rules towards advanced qualification programs (AQP). In the old 121 world, the pilot monitoring was not so gently instructed to keep their mouth shut while the pilot flying completed their check-ride sans any assistance. Crew resource management (CRM) was inexplicitly frowned upon in the training environment. Orals were hours long and could cover literally any sentence inside of 3,000 pages worth of operational manuals.
My first three type ratings (along with a dozen other training events) were under the old system. One particular genius that came along with AQP was recognizing the pointlessness of forcing pilots to memorize the manuals. You can do it, but two weeks after the oral, you’ll have forgotten 95 percent of it. More important is the ability to find the guidance you need when you encounter the one-in-a-hundred events that require it. Likewise, what is the point of emphasizing CRM in theory if you don’t allow it during a checkride? A big part of safe flight is communicating effectively. This is not limited to multi-crew environments.
ATC is obviously a resource on any given flight, and proper communication with maintenance personnel on the ground can be the difference between a successful flight and a crisis. Even communication with non-pilot passengers is crucial. Not only will passengers sometimes perceive a threat before a pilot will, but it is also important that they feel comfortable speaking up in the event that they start feeling ill. Good communication skills through initial and refresher training allow instructors to focus on areas that the pilot is not fully comfortable in, as well as hone in on the specific skills that are relevant for the type of flying that the pilot engages in. Good communication skills allow outside perspectives to rescue you from the inevitable bout with myopia that we all occasionally have.
Know Enough, Not Too Much
I am currently at the tail end of training for an Airbus 320 type rating. On the first day of ground, my instructor conceptualized the new standard represented by airline AQP training. He stated that aircraft systems could be categorized into five different levels based upon the depth of system knowledge an individual possessed. Level five is where the designing engineers live. Level four is where system specialist techs need to be. Aircraft-specific mechanics reside at level three, while general mechanics get by at level two. Pilots only need to be at a level one.
Level one still represents an awful lot
of knowledge, but it recognizes that additional knowledge is not necessary and may create its own set of problems. The deeper the knowledge that you have, the more likely you will be tempted to troubleshoot an issue in the air. The better response is to follow any abnormal guidance published by the aircraft manufacturer, get the aircraft safely on the ground and hand it over to a higher-level source (i.e., maintenance personnel). The level one requirement is to possess the knowledge needed to safely operate the aircraft. This includes operating limitations, any aircraft-specific memory items, and the level of systems knowledge required to manage abnormal procedures.
This doesn’t mean that more detailed systems knowledge should be avoided. Every aircraft is different, and so is the depth of knowledge required to competently operate a specific airframe. While smaller aircraft can be basic and easy to learn comprehensively, higher performance aircraft can have a hundred thousand parts designed by a thousand different engineers. No single person has a truly comprehensive understanding of a big turbojet. In order to obtain in-depth insight into something like an A320, you’d have to cram a dozen different specialists into the same room. The degree of operational safety that can be obtained while flying such a complex piece of equipment is remarkable. You just have to focus on your part and communicate effectively with other subject matter experts.
Accidents, Training, More Accidents
On March 3, 1991, United Airlines Flight 585 entered a right roll which eventually resulted in a steep nose-down attitude while on approach to Colorado Springs airport in Colorado. All the occupants of the aircraft perished. The NTSB struggled to discover the root cause, with the initial report stating: “…after an exhaustive investigation effort, [we cannot] identify conclusive evidence to explain the loss of the aircraft.” Eventually, the Board would amend the findings following a similar accident on USAir flight 427 (which resulted in the longest investigation in NTSB history at four and a half years).
The USAir accident was ultimately solved due to an incident that occurred on Eastwind Airlines flight 517. The pilots of flight 517 provided testimony to investigators regarding uncommanded rudder inputs that they had encountered aloft (flight data recorders of the era did not capture details relating to rudder pedal position, so this information was not available to investigators for United 585 or USAir 427). All three events involved Boeing 737 aircraft, which had experienced a sudden yawing moment at relatively low airspeed. Flight telemetry from United 585 and USAir 427 suggested a full application of rudder had precipitated the loss of aircraft control. Investigators had been unable to exclude the pilots as the source of the offending input prior to the testimony provided by Eastwind 517. In the end, the culprit was determined to be a bad rudder control valve. Most aircraft have a crossover speed where full rudder deflection will generate rolling inertia equal to maximum aileron authority. The rudder malfunctions of United 585 and USAir 427 occurred below the aileron crossover speed resulting in a wing-over descent and crash, while the malfunction experienced by Eastwind 517 occurred above crossover speed allowing the pilots to maintain control via copious amounts of aileron.
Anytime a series of high-profile accidents occur, a massive response is sure to follow. While Boeing ultimately solved the problem by fixing the servo valve in the 737 rudder system, airline and cargo operators attempted to analyze how crews could more successfully respond to similar flight control issues in the future. Advanced maneuvering programs were developed with the noble intention of equipping pilots with the tools to respond to even the direst of flight control malfunctions. Some of these well-intended programs ultimately contributed to other accidents and incidents, as complex maneuvering theory was misappropriated by the occasional line pilot.
Even long-standing training techniques have proven capable of producing unintended consequences. The NTSB concluded that stall training was a factor in the Cogan Air 3407 accident. At the time, stall demonstrations required pilots to maintain altitude throughout the maneuver. The idea was that powerful aircraft have the performance to recover from a stall while maintaining level flight. Under the old system you could fail a checkride if you lost altitude during the recovery. This produced a strong desire to keep the nose up following a stall, which in hindsight is a poor impulse to imprint on a pilot. New stall training emphasizes reducing the angle of attack in order to break the stall. Loss of altitude is no longer graded.
For all of this, the problem has not yet been solved. In 2019, Atlas Air flight 3591 crashed into Trinity Bay just outside of Houston after the first officer mistakenly commanded a go-around (investigators believe that his watch bumped a TOGA button located on the power levers). He mistook the resultant pitch up for a stall and pushed the nose into an unrecoverable dive. Like the captain in the Colgan crash, the Atlas first officer had a spotty background with checkrides. These sorts of events can point to a dark secret: training programs have to account for (at most) an average pilot exhibiting average skills. Though the application of advanced skills occasionally results in an outstanding save (see United Airlines flight 232, US Airways flight 1549 and Delta Air Lines flight 1080, among others), there can be danger in attempting to train overly complex theory into nominal pilots. Even relatively simple skills can sometimes be too much. An emphasis on maintaining a safe boundary from the “edge of the envelope” is generally sufficient for the sake of safe flight.
The intent of training is not to lower the standards but to produce a safe skillset that pilots can comply with on a regular basis. Even a great pilot on a bad day (early show, insufficient rest, emotional distractions, poor nutrition/exercise/illness, et al.) can get themselves into a great deal of trouble when attempting to comply with an overly complex process. It is best to simplify maneuvers and profiles to the point where an exhausted pilot has a fair shot at success. Aerobatic training emphasizes proficiency at the edge of the envelope, and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet, in aircraft designed for transportation, it is important to focus on skills that produce a sufficient margin for error. This requires the development of proficiency while making allowance for distractions and bad days. A high-performance aircraft is exceedingly complex, requiring a great deal of attention to master. There is no such thing as a perfect process. It is far better to accept the merely satisfactory than to treat trivial details as though they are of prime importance. You are going to make mistakes. Reserve them for the things that won’t kill you.
