Where Birds Don't Fly

In the production of aircraft parts there are parts and systems that are more important to maintain safety than other systems. Not all systems are equal important for the safe operations of an aircraft and these systems are the safety critical areas. Within these systems there are parts with identified functions that have a higher probability of causing a catastrophic outcome of the flight when malfunctioning. Safety critical tools are vital to safety performance. As with parts, within flight operations there are operational systems that are safety critical areas for the safety of a flight. Within these areas there are safety critical functions, or processes, that are safety critical to operations. Not all flight operational systems and processes are critical for the safety of a flight. In an SMS world, the tasks become to identify what are the vital few safety critical areas and functions of flight operations and what are the trivial many areas and functions. It is commonly said, acce...

There are several accident reports of Captains making one single decision which is leading to a fatal accident. The first officer of other flight crew members may have attempted to communicate with the Captain but without luck. Often investigations would assume that if another flight crew member would have interfered with the Captain’s duties the accident would have been avoided. When sitting at an office desk with 20/20 hindsight, these accidents could have been averted, but at the time and location of event the Captain and first officer were not performing anything else but what they were trained for. Training is more than the official training where check-boxes are filled in. Training also includes normal operations or organizational expectations of priorities and unwritten rules. Air Florida 90 departing Washington National Airport VA, United 173 on approach to Portland OR, Air Ontario 1363 departing Dryden ON, Uruguayan Air Force 571 in the Andes Mountains and KLM 4805 departing L...