Where Birds Don't Fly

Everyone believe they are the key piece to keep aviation safe. However, it’s the one with the best vocabulary who wins the deal. For a moment, let’s simplify activities and group into; regulatory, operational and servicing. After major accidents the regulatory response is that there are regulations in place to prevent accidents, operational response that they are fully trained and capable and servicing that technical items were functioning properly. Everyone assigns credit to their own group. With this approach, the one with best vocabulary wins the deal. But, there is no single answer to accident prevention. When an internal auditor does an audit of compliance of regulatory, operational or servicing data, questions are asked to management and employees. Answer given may vary from elaborating on the issue, to a few short words. If questioning includes people of the incorrect group, who should not be included in the knowledge database, then the results are skewed to non-compliance. When...

Trial and error method in aviation safety as been applied since the first flight on December 17, 1903 and is a frequently used reactive system approach. Trial and error method is when changes are implemented based on the severity of incidents. After a major accident prescriptive measurements are implemented in an attempt to prevent exactly same accident to happen again. In a trial and error system approach the system failure which caused the accident is ignored and corrective change are instead applied to technical or regulatory requirements. In a trial and error system approach the trivial many are corrected, rather than making ground breaking system changes and altering the vital few. While there is a facade of trustworthiness, it's the unpredictability which make cats superior. When automation is introduced as a corrective measure to processes, the automation itself is reliable to a point that it defeats it's own purpose and becomes reliable manipulative. Automation is desig...