Life Lessons From Cockpit

In this lesson from the cockpit I would like to share with you how pilots minimize communication errors in the cockpit.

• Different words mean different things. We interpret words based on our own experiences and sometimes our culture. Take the work “sex” as an example. My interpretation and understanding of the word would definitely be different from yours. There are many other words that could be misinterpreted and therefore to eliminate this during flights, pilots and air traffic controllers use a “standard phraseology” for their communication. What they need to do is to learn them and use them for communication during all phases of the flight.
• Clarify. Besides flying the aircraft, pilots have other responsibilities as well in the cockpit. They have to carry out other tasks such as managing the aircraft systems, monitoring the weather enroute as well as monitoring the enroute charts and maps. During a non-normal situation their workload will be increased further. All the above will have to be accomplished whilst communicating with the air traffic controllers (ATC) and because of the distraction, they could easily misinterpret the ATC instructions. To eliminate miscommunication and misinterpretation of ATC instructions, the procedure calls for both pilots to listen out to the communication and whenever in doubt, they have to clarify with the other pilot as well as with the controllers.
• Good command of English. English is the medium used in aviation. As such it is a requirement for all pilots and air traffic controllers (ATC) to have a good command of the English language. It is now a mandatory requirement for all pilots and controllers to sit for a periodic “aviation English” test. Unsuccessful candidates will have to be retested or to attend a crash course in English before the retest, if required.
• Proper workload management. Normally the pilot who is not manipulating the flight control is responsible for communicating with the controllers and the other pilot monitoring. The pilot tasked with the communicating with the controllers is also responsible for carrying out other tasks to provide support to the flying pilot. As such it is important for the Captain to ensure that the pilot doing the communication is not overly stressed and overloaded with other unrelated tasks.

Witten by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: aircraft, Cockpit, Communication, life lessons, Pilots, workload management

During flight pilots communicate all the time. This goes on until the airplane arrives at the destination, engines shut down and all passengers and crew disembark from the airplane. In fact communication is one of the critical elements, or components of a flight. Studies have shown that a lot of incidents or accidents happened during flights due to a breakdown in communication in the cockpit amongst the pilots as well as miscommunication between pilots and others such as air traffic controllers and engineers.

In our daily life, we too are continuously communicating. It is often said that “we cannot not communicate.” Think about that for a moment. Since we are doing it all the time we become unconscious about it. Yet how many times have we misinterpreted when someone was talking to us or we have been misunderstood when we were talking or saying something to another person.

Oftentimes we underestimate the importance of good communication skills. One can learn to be a good communicator from books or by attending courses. Learning is one thing, we also need to practice this newly learned skill and be aware and be conscious of the response that we get whenever we communicate.

Just how important is good communication in the cockpit? Well, from my own experience I know for sure that it is very, very important. In fact it is crucial for the safety of the flight. Take a typical long haul flight as an example. It flies not only over long periods of time; it also flies across many countries. Although everyone speaks English, however each of them speaks English with a different accent.

Another area that could be of concern is the altitude that an aircraft flies at. Some countries use feet as the unit of measurement whereas some use meters. At most airports the surface wind is reported in knots whereas some other airports report surface wind in meters per second. Apart from the above, different countries could have different air traffic control procedures. All the above could be confusing and if not properly clarified while communicating, it could be a safety hazard.

In my next post I will explain how communication errors are minimized in the cockpit.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: aircraft, Cockpit, Communication, life lessons, Pilots, workload management

Flying is an exciting profession. Apart from the opportunity to see the world and staying in top rated hotels one could meet interesting personalities on board the aircraft and oftentimes experience challenging encounters that could test one’s patience and problem solving skills. On the positive side, such experiences could be used as lessons learned. I would therefore like to relate such an encounter that I had many years ago while I was flying the Fokker 27.

It was the start of a routine flight departing in the afternoon and scheduled to end in the evening just after sunset and I was the Captain of the flight. The flight schedule involved four transit stops before arriving at the destination.

As the aircraft was taxing for the take off position, one of the flight steward came on the cockpit-cabin interphone and reported that one of the passengers, a lady refused to fasten her seat belt and asked me what he should do as the said passenger just refused to listen to him. It is a requirement for the cabin crew to ensure that all passengers are strapped before take-off, therefore such behaviour could be an issue. I told the flight steward to order the passenger to buckle up and that if she refuses, to tell her that the Captain will turn the aircraft around, summon the security personnel and that she will be taken off the flight. The flight steward did as he was told and a few seconds later, he came over the flight intercom to report that the passenger still refused to fasten her seat belt.

I was in a dilemma. If I were to turn back, the flight would be delayed and I would have to skip some of the airfields as those airfields could only be operated during the day as they were not equipped for night operations. This would have inconvenienced quite a lot of the passengers who were bound for those affected airports. On the other hand I could not condone such behaviour on the flight as it is detrimental to flight safety. I had to think fast on my next move as there were other aircrafts waiting in line to depart.

The cabin crews are taught how to handle difficult situations in the cabin and to seek opinion and assistance from the pilots only if they are unable to resolve the issue. In this instance they obviously needed some help. So I told my copilot to go to the cabin and to deal directly with the passenger. The copilot did as he was told and came out from his seat to go to the cabin. As soon as the lady passenger saw the copilot walking towards her, she quickly buckled her seat belt and we departed without further incident.

The problem would seem trivial to some, however in any situation and experience, we could always learn something from them. The following are the lessons learned from my above experience that I use in my crew resource management (CRM) training for pilots:

• One should not compromise on safety. I have learned that in aviation, safety should take precedence over schedule. This principle should also be applicable in our daily life.
• In life, problems can happen unexpectedly and one should always be prepared for them.
• Have a few alternative solutions to problems that we encounter. In this way if one solution does not work we can always fall back on other alternatives without wasting precious time.
• As a leader, do not be quick to handle the situation yourself. First delegate it to the other team members. If all else fails only then should the leader intervene.
• Practice to think and solve problems on your feet. It is difficult at first, however if you have a template and practice it often, it becomes natural after a while.

Written by Azharuddin Osman

Tags: aircraft, crew resource management, flight safety, leader, Life Lessons from Cockpit, Problem Solving, safety