[FDOS_UK]

Travelworld

As I wrote earlier, BA had to take action about 15 years ago, because the crew did not know the chain of command.

Believe me or not, your choice. RFerguson may remember the incident, but probably wouldn’t wish to discuss it in a public forum.

[SimonS1]

Have you advised the CAA?

[FDOS_UK]

SimonS1 – 03/06/2016 23:27 BST

Why would this be a CAA matter, Simon?

Maybe you can advise which part of the ANO it contravenes?

[Ron.Kirtley]

It sounds to me like FDOS_UK has more of a personal issue with this particular CSM than anything else. I don’t think because one CSM on one particular flight who’s perhaps intention was to refer to his/her cabin crew as ‘my’ has anything to do with cabin crew understanding of the chain of command. FDOS_UK has just assumed that by ‘my crew’ this CSM was referring to the pilots as well.
It just sounds like another attack on BA, particularly ‘mixed fleet’ plucked from one of the most obscure situations.

[rferguson]

Regarding the issue in the 2000’s…the crew concerned were fully aware of the chain of command. Some chose to ignore it for whatever reason. It was not an issue of knowing who was in charge. I think anyone that watched Airplane or Titanic as a child/teenager knows that the Captain is in charge. End of. There is a hierachy under that. Obviously this is reaffirmed (time and time again) in both initial and annual recurrent training within airlines.

And there ARE situations where that chain of command will be broken. Think of an out of control fire at doors five of a 747 whilst the aircraft is on the ground. The Captain does not have rear vision mirrors or CCTV from the cockpit. He may be blissfully unaware sipping a cup of tea up in the cockpit whilst there is a blazing inferno flicking at my bum at the back of the craft with panic ensuing. I can assure you that if the aircraft is stationary I would hit that evacuation alarm, assess the outside situation and if the engines had stopped and ground clear I would open that door and get people out. There are many examples of the consequences of not acting fast with fire – look at the Manchester British Airtours accident. Or Saudia flight 163 in 1980 where the ENTIRE passenger load and crew died in a fire – ON THE GROUND – because of delays getting the passengers off.

Chain of command is important. What is MORE important from a safety perspective is being able to challenge that chain of command. Look at the amount of air disasters – predominantly in asia – which have occurred because of a STRICT cultural hierarchy where questioning ‘the commander’ is out of question. Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia. Airlines from all these countries have had crashes where looking back at them later the investigators have been aware that the First Officer and or Cabin Crew knew the Captain had made an error or overlooked something or felt something was not right yet did not dare challenge him/her. There are so so many examples of this.

This even happened in the UK with the British Midland Kegworth disaster. The cabin crew heard the Captain announce the left hand engine had a fire and would be shut down. Yet they could see it was the right hand engine on fire. No one questioned it. They assumed the captain knew what he was talking about. Can a pilot see the engines from the cockpit? No. What ensued afterwards was the compulsary introduction of ‘Crew Resource Management’ or CRM. Whilst the ranking order is reaffirmed a large element of the training is that never ever feel afraid to challenge a higher ranking person on a safety issue if you think it’s wrong.

In many cultures doing that is a huge no-no. Which is why airlines like Korean Airlines, Garuda and Asiana have introduced ‘mixed nationality’ cockpit crews now. Where there are two, three or four man (or women) cockpit crews you usually see at least one, sometimes two western crew – or crew that do not hail from that country – and kind of exist outside the cultural restraint of hierarchy.

[SimonS1]

I dunno FDOS but I must say it makes a damn fine anti-BA story for people to chew on over the weekend.

[FDOS_UK]

rferguson – 04/06/2016 06:49 BST

Thanks for a long and considered post, which hits the target in the bullseye.

I agree that there is a world of difference between refusing to accept an instruction from the captain (for whatever reason) and using your initiative/professional skills to deal with an emergency requiring instant action – Saudia 163 was an appalling incident, with which I am familiar and the loss of life could have been avoided completely or at least mitigated to a significant degree.

BA cabin crew have shown how to deliver textbook evacuations twice in recent years, BA38 and Las Vegas, last year and I have a very high degree of faith in legacy crews to keep me safe, if it is ever necessary.

I also agree about the dangers of high power – distance indices in certain cultures – a 747F was needlessly destroyed within a few miles of my house in late 1999, mercifully without casulaties on the ground and this provides a case study to back up your comments.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19991222-0

The Kegworth incident was also a cruel demonstration of what happens when people are under stress. It was actually the left engine (#1) that shed the outer part of a fan blade and ultimately failed, with the crew shutting down the healthy #2 on the right, but apart from that your recalling captures the key points and the CRM lessons were taken onboard.

A few years ago, I was sitting in an Air Malta A319 and the right engine felt to be vibrating a little more than normal, causing me to pass a jocular comment, to the cc whom I knew, about it stirring my G&T for me. Within 2 minutes, the captain came to check it out, as he said it was indicating higher than normal, but within parameters – but he wanted to see for himself if it was noticeable to pax and compare it to the instrument reading – pretty impressive, I thought.

That attitude is a world away from the expert bias/confirmation bias (or the presumption that the professionals always know best) that had such an effect on the Kegworth crash.

I am not asserting that a robotic compliance to chain of command is a good thing, but I guess you probably know that, nor that we should go back to the bad old days of the ‘Baron’ captains, but that CRM is very important and is built on mutual respect and when you have a young and impressionable young crew pool, careless use of words could act as a catalyst for the forming of opinions that are wrong and could impact on the running of the aircraft. Edited: Not in an emergency context, but more creating friction between cc and tech crew.

I don’t think we know each other, but some of the other posters on here are aware of my professional background (which includes applied psychology and in particular, psychometrics) and my work in behavioural change (management development). So far from this being a rant at BA (a company that I do not pretend to like, these days), it is more a note of concern.

[FDOS_UK]

Ron.Kirtley – 04/06/2016 05:55 BST

Sounds to me like you are jumping to conclusions.

[FDOS_UK]

SimonS1 – 04/06/2016 09:29 BST

There’s nothing to report to the CAA, nor to BA, for that matter.

It’s not an anti-BA story, either, unless someone wishes to make a tortous construct back to the mixed fleet raison d’etre and the cost savings from trying to change the crewing contracts, which I am not trying to do.

But it did happen exactly as I wrote.

[MartynSinclair]

Your threads FDoS do seem to get a wider range of people commenting on what appears to be a non subject. Clearly, people do seem to be interested.. :))

There was a similar thread a few years ago about how the senior cabin crew member (on VS), would thank “my crew for all their hard work”, just before landing. I recall posters thought this was patronising.

Whilst I accept that each crew member has a role and is all part of a larger team, perhaps the whole protocol of cabin announcements should be reviewed.

I would be more in favour of the Captain, showing his/her senior position, rather than just speaking down the PA with a nasal voice about the flight in a manner that most pax cant even hear or understand.

eg. Welcome aboard, please remove all headphones, put your papers down and stop talking for a few minutes so MY CREW can demonstrate how to stay alive in the event of a problem… over to you senior purser…

[Zermatt]

Well one good thing has come out of this, Business Traveller has +1 member as I’ve signed up specifically to reply to this!

This is one of the most pedantic and pathetic posts I’ve ever seen on here. I’ve been reading comments and the odd forum post for a long time on here and FDOS I thought you seemed quite switched on.

You would be well reminded that “Cabin crew are primarily here for your safety”. Their PAs, specifically speaking the non-safety elements like the onboard welcome, are purely cosmetic and there to make you feel warm and rosey inside, just like a PA in Waitrose about the benefits of a MyWaitrose card perhaps.

They do not infer anything about safety. If you have ever actually been cabin crew you will be under no illusion of anything but the Captain being the commander of the ship and ultimately in charge. The SCCM is primarily in charge of the cabin, but still under the charge of the Captain.

The choice of words is clearly immaterial and if you’ve flown before this trip you must know it, but I’m unsure of you reasons for being so pedantic – I don’t know whether to infer anything by you specifically calling out MF? I could waffle on or fudge my words in a PA or take a pause because I’m distracted or have a sore throat that day and not give off the warmest of welcomes but that wouldn’t in the slightest bit have any impact on knowing the chain of command onboard. The idea you are proposing is beyond ridiculous.

The priority is to break down barriers onboard and promote better and better CRM to enhance safety, not to emphasise the chain of command which is obvious to even the passengers.

I’m really disappointed my first post on this site is on such a embarrassing subject to be honest…

[Flyboy18]

Zermatt

+ 1

[FDOS_UK]

Zermatt

Firstly welcome to the forum, it’s good to see a new member.

Would you mind sharing your professional qualifications in psychology, to justify your statement that “The choice of words is clearly immaterial’?

As someone with a pan European qualification in psychometrics, my professional opinion is that the words authority figures use are material in influencing the attitudes of colleagues, even when this is not intended.

As for the reference to mixed fleet, it was because (a) the crew operating the flight was mixed fleet, thus factual and (b) the mixed fleet demographics are quite different to the BA legacy fleets and in my opinion, more open to the perils of unconscious auto suggestion.

As has been stated on the thread, action was required in the past to reaffirm the chain of command, so this is not a ludicrous idea.

By the way, you use the word ‘pedantic’, which means being over focused on minor details. As a psychometrician, we are trained to ‘attend’ to what people say and draw inferences from their choices. It’s not the same thing and I had to demonstrate these type of skills to a respected Chartered Psychologist to be signed off as competent.

Then again, that should not really surprise me, as you I do not believe you have read my comments on the thread very carefully.

If you had, you would notice that I have never once mentioned safety and the OP states ‘efficiency’ (I haven’t edited it.)

Finally, your penultimate para suggest to me that you may believe that CRM is more important than chain of command – if this is a misinterpretation, please post accordingly and I’ll remove this para. IMHO, both are very important and are mutually inclusive – CRM is built on mutual respect (up and down the chain, which is why PDI can be a problem as RFerguson opines in his earlier post).

[FDOS_UK]

MartynSinclair – 04/06/2016 10:45 BST

I like your last para. If it were followed up by the cabin crew, in the assertive manner that I’ve seen FR crew use to stop talking during the brief and get attention, then even better.

What I did like on the same flight last week, was the young cc by the overwings making sure everyone knew they were in an exit row and politely (but clearly) insisting on pax reading the hatch operating instructions – a job well done.

[Speedbird1994]

Zermatt

+1

What an inane and irrelevant topic! I’m kind of frustrated people bothered replying, thus keeping it in the forum! (and yes, I know, I’m doing the same!) It was a slip of the tongue. Noting more. Nothing less. Big woo-hoop. *insert eye rolling emoji here*

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