Results in the Lion Air Crash?
Pilot error does not happen in isolation. If pilots are not given the tools to do the job, then what can we expect when the aircraft breaks?
I'm receiving many emails and comments from people who participated in my research in response to the Lion Air accident. Now the FAA reports that the airspeed indicator was the problem. The update is that they may have had a runaway stabilizer as a result of. As we all know, technology is not infallible and components will break. However, pilots should know how to fly.
The question is, why couldn't they fly their aircraft?
PILOT COMMENTS:
"Can we agree that any captain should be able to maintain aircraft control using standby instruments and power, safely fly an ILS on radar vectors, and land without incident..."
"I'll be very surprised if there was something mechanically wrong about this airplane that made it un-flyable. I hate to think that it was pilot error, but that's exactly what I will expect to hear. I hope to be proven wrong."
My research is complete!
Thanks to pilots worldwide who cared enough to assist in this research. I had 7490 pilots respond. While some surveys were incomplete, and some aircraft did not have autopilot, autothrust, or an EICAS, those were removed from the structural equation model (SEM), but all data was gathered to evaluate opinions. The final data analysis (SEM) was with 5661 surveys. I only needed 1599 to validate the model.
What the results identified was that statistically aircraft and systems understanding has the greatest and positive impact on a pilots willingness to fly their aircraft. Statistically pilot training has the greatest impact on the level of understanding. That pilot training has a negative impact on pilots choice to manually fly their aircraft. Meaning the more training the pilot has, the the less the pilot is willing to fly their aircraft. Safety Culture has the greatest impact on pilot training. And finally when a mediating hypothesis was analyzed to see the impact of Safety Culture on Pilot Training and how that impacted a pilots willingness to manually fly, we found a negative relationship. I think my stats guru best explains this relationship with his statement:
"Wow! Safety Culture is sucking
the benefit out of pilot training!"
I believe we found the underlying variables
contributing to pilot error:
Safety Culture and Pilot Training.
Two things that are fixable.
Hopefully that will be sooner than later.
My dissertation is in the final review phase now. As soon as it is approved and published, I will update the research website and provide a link to the full dissertation for everyone. Standby for a book from this research as well, that will be a gift to all participants!
Thank you for caring enough to participate
in the interest of safety!
Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene
Karlene the previous roller coaster flight from Bali as JT093 offers some clues. Conflicting airspeed and altitude, plus a light elevator feel. To me this suggests that faulty airspeed data prompted the B737MAX's Fly-By-Wire spoilers to open in the climb. Pilots couldn't override this and fought hard just to maintain maximum airspeed for level flight. This was a design flaw in the aircraft.
ReplyDeleteSimon Gunson, New Zealand
Yes, a definite design flaw. I only wish they would have allowed us to hear the CVR. Sorry for my delay in response... my blogger has been hiding comments on me. Thank you so much for sharing your insight!
DeleteKarlene, I have a question about your post. It's probably something really simple but I'm missing it.
ReplyDeleteYou say here, "...statistically aircraft and systems understanding has the greatest and positive impact on a pilots willingness to fly their aircraft."
You also say, "Statistically pilot training has the greatest impact on the level of understanding."
All of this makes total sense to me. Then you write this:
"That pilot training has a negative impact on pilots choice to manually fly their aircraft. Meaning the more training the pilot has, the the less the pilot is willing to fly their aircraft. "
This last statement seems antithetical to the first couple of statements. Either there's an error in a key word in these statements or, there's something wrong with the pilot training making them not want to fly their aircraft. Can you clarify?
Tom
Tom, I am sorry for the delay in response! Yes...the data shows that Pilot training is having a negative effect on pilots willingness to fly their aircraft. Please join me on the defense, January 11, 1300... you can join us at the ERAU campus... or view live as a guest by linking here: https://eaglevision.adobeconnect.com/ruvfo1dpt09w/
Delete