CoolP wrote: I know that you are talking about all that "sissy" stuff from time to time, but I don't doubt that the human factors issue gets underestimated from your side.
Do you remember when the training on those things started in the airlines?
For instance, there must have been a day when the TWA CEO announced that some "practical psychology" is now part of all crew training efforts, am I right?

You are so right. In the early days of flying the Captain was the final word in all things. This was really bad if the Captain would not take advice from a lower ranking crew member and with arrogance would kill everyone on the plane because good information was dismissed since the Captain is the Captain by God!

I remember from the first day of training at TWA one of the daily classes was called - SAFETY. It was sober look at past crashes and what causes could be understood from the incident, and then how to avoid them in the future. This class slowly morphed into a whole new way of looking at the command structure in the cockpit. The result was CRM - Cockpit Resource Management. This concept was adopted by almost all crew members and expanded to include the rest of the cabin team and indeed the whole team of dispatch and other parts of the airline structure. In a short time the rate of incidents and crashes started to decline - the effect was palpable.

Just last month I was on a cruise ship and was introduced to the Captain who gave me a tour of his operation. One of the things he told me was that even the last hold out of the "Captain has the last word" -world, now all ship Captains and crew also practice CRM.

:( :o :-? >:(

On another posted subject by pj747... nzaviationrules is correct when he says it would be wise to wait for the investigation before dumping on one carrier. The fact is ALL the airlines have some closet doors, that if opened would reveal unsavory activity at some time. This is a time, IMHO to make haste slowly.


Lou