David Learmount/LONDON
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
Paul Phelan/CAIRNS
AS MILITARY BUDGETS shrink and resources become more scarce, there are signs, that military aviation flight safety leaders, are taking up ideas developed by the civil air transport community. In one of the most significant of these steps, cockpit-resource management (CRM), now more commonly called crew-resource management, is being examined for use in the military flight-operations arena.
Human factors, always high profile in military flight safety, are emphasised more than ever as the area offering the greatest potential for accident reduction. The chairman of the European Air Forces Flight Safety Committee, Air Cdre Rick Peacock-Edwards, says: "In recent years we have really started to home in on the human-factors area. Most nations face the same problems and seem to be adopting similar approaches."
Meanwhile, in the USA, the US Air Force is being forced to undergo a painful re-assessment of its whole accident investigation and reporting procedure. Having just painted a rosy picture of a 1994 in which accident rates were standard, the USAF's leaders are now facing allegations of cover-ups in accident investigations and worsening standards in 1995.
MILITARY CRM
Peacock-Edwards, who is also the Royal Air Force's inspector of flight safety, says that CRM training for the RAF's many operational roles is being developed. Meanwhile, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has already adopted CRM and is in the process of refining it for the military environment.
The RAF's Inspectorate of Flight Safety (IFS), plans to begin by introducing CRM training to the squadrons in 1996, then into basic air-crew training "gradually". Meanwhile, the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm says that it is watching the RAF's experience closely to see what it can learn.
Sqn Ldr Terry MacKinnon of the RAAF's Directorate of Flying Safety says: "We have our own in-house CRM course, run by Tony Wilson, who started the TAA [the former Trans Australia Airlines] course. We do about 15 courses a year, and it involves all aircrew, including cabin staff. We try to get to them as early as possible in their careers, and we're introducing CRM to the actual basic training at 2FTS [flying training school] now, so we're going to start it right at the beginning of their flying career." CRM will also be part of type-conversion courses. MacKinnon observes: "We've become more aware of what we're actually doing, rather than [ignoring] the dictatorship you can get in a cockpit."
Aviation has radically changed too, MacKinnon argues, making CRM essential: "Years ago, when the civvies took experienced military pilots, the captain was expected to know everything, and there was only one-way communication in the cockpit, but these days aviation is so complex that just a small idea from the most junior person could be the answer to a problem at hand. Just as in the maintenance area, with aircraft maintainer and support crew, you can improve productivity by the sharing of information."
"CRM has only been going for about a year, so we haven't had a chance to evaluate it," admits MacKinnon, "but it's significant that we're now introducing it to the fighter world. Years ago we wouldn't have thought of CRM in fighters. If you're in a formation, you're not in a single-pilot situation, the guy on your wing is your co-pilot, your backup; that's effectively the concept. Also, you can talk to people on the ground; they are part of the resources you can draw from."
Peacock-Edwards says: "CRM is not just for the multi-engine world as far as we are concerned. When you fly in formations you need to understand each other. "He points out that it is essential that the pilot of a fighter receiving air-to-air refueling has "to know the problems the tanker crews face". He believes that air traffic controllers, fighter controllers and forward air controllers are part of a team to which the principles of CRM can be applied. He says: "Anybody who can communicate with the pilots is part of the team."
CRM IN THE STRUCTURE
The RAAF is starting to apply the CRM concept to the whole organisation. MacKinnon explains: "We're promoting an understanding that everybody who's involved in the flying is also responsible for the safety of that aircraft. We're actually promoting that to senior management in the military, and it has been adopted and accepted. This is not a new trick or concept, it's something that's been apparent for years. Now somebody's got it together and put a name to it, a structure to the concept, and it does work."
In peacetime, MacKinnon says, the military cannot accept operational risk levels which would be justified in war: attitudes, he says, have to become more like those of a civil operator. "The culture's the same, and through doing CRM training with the airlines there's some cross-pollination. Also, we involve ourselves with BASI [the Australian Bureau of Air Safety Investigation]."
The reverse is also true: Cdr Richard Seymour, the RN's Command Flight Safety Officer and head of the new Flight Safety and Accident Investigation Centre (RNFSAIC) at RNAS Yeovilton, reflects that flight safety is just as relevant in wartime: during the heat of the Falklands/Malvinas war, 13 aircraft were lost to enemy action and 12 to accidents.
Human factors has now been elevated in the RAAF's safety-priorities list, says MacKinnon: "We have changed our reporting system in the last 18 months to try to improve the reporting of incidents involving human factors, because we feel, as BASI does, that human factors is the single major cause of accidents." Air force-employed civilian psychologists now take part in accident investigations where there is a strong human-factors element, MacKinnon reveals.
He says that the philosophy, which brought CRM has affected flying training: "The nature of instruction has changed over the years, as it has in society. Instead of it being a one-way conversation with a student, you invite the student to participate in his own education, and he can give you some feedback on how he feels the instruction's going. People are not as dictatorial as they used to be."
Peacock-Edwards gives the figures which indicate why concentration is on human factors, revealing that "at least 40%" of RAF accidents are definitely attributable to aircrew error but, he adds, the figure is probably closer to 50-60%.
Seymour subjects even the incident statistics to relentless analysis. The RN categorises incidents into "avoidables" and "unavoidables". During 1994, RN aviation recorded 978 incidents, of which 181 were judged avoidable and 797 unavoidable. Among the avoidables, 44% were attributed to aircrew error, 30% to servicing error, and 26% to support error. All avoidables, by their nature, however, are human-factors incidents.
The RN is now emphasising the need for incident reporting. Commodore Terry Taylor, Chief of Staff to the Flag Officer Naval Aviation, is backing Seymour's campaign on this front even if, as Seymour explains, it makes the incident rate apparently increase. The RN has an anonymous reporting system it calls "Any mouse", but the intention is to encourage open reporting of hazards or mistakes in a culture which does not concentrate on allocating blame.
In this respect, the RN seems to reflect the mood of the times: a spirit of co-operation between all levels in the interest of flight safety. RNFSAIC staff visit units and ships regularly, to make safety presentations and Seymour says, that his staff use the visits, to gain informal feedback. The intent, he says, is purely positive: "It would be a very bad idea if squadrons started to see us as a trapper [examining] unit," he emphasises.
Brig Gen. Orin Godsey, the USAF's Chief of Safety, says: "The individual pilot is important to safety, but even more critical is the culture imbedded by training and standards. All aviators must know and train to standards that are enforced. Leadership is the key."
SAFETY AUDITS
The RAAF has plans for safety audits by "external agencies", says MacKinnon. He explains: "We share information with other forces. In particular we have an information exchange with the Royal Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and US forces. We expect to be audited... whether it be [by] another air force or an external agency has yet to be decided."
Two years ago the RAF started internal safety audits which were specific to aircraft types and their operating roles (See Military Air Safety Review, Flight International, 6-12 April 1994, P30-32). These "airworthiness reviews" examine engineering, operational and aircrew safety recommendations and follow up their implementation. Peacock-Edwards emphasises: "I personally consider these [airworthiness reviews] to be one of the most important areas of our work. From the engineering point of view they have been of tremendous benefit."
Early in 1994 the first of the reviews - on the Boeing Chinook - had been completed. Now the full report on the British Aerospace Harrier has been delivered, although not all its 200 recommendations have yet been implemented, according to Peacock-Edwards. He points out that the safety review of the Panavia Tornado - all versions - is in progress, with completion expected by October. The RAF's Lockheed C-130 Hercules operations are next in line for review, followed respectively by those of the BAe Hawk, Sepecat Jaguar, BAe Nimrod, and Vickers VC-10.
USAF SOUL-SEARCHING
Since 1 January, according to USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogleman, the air force has suffered 18 Class A accidents (Class A mishaps are those which result in fatalities, destroy an aircraft or cost $1 million or more to repair).
The Pentagon inspector general's office, the US General Accounting Office and a presidentially appointed panel are now reviewing the US Air Force's handling of major air accidents. The investigations will also try to determine why there has been, during mid-1995, an alarming increase in the accident rate involving USAF aircraft: there have been 22 "class A" accidents this fiscal year (since 30 September, 1994), and ten of them have taken place in May-June 1995.
To make matters worse, a pall hangs over the USAF's Aircraft Mishap Prevention Programme, which is now run by Godsey. Allegations have been made by a former top safety official which commanders falsified records over several years to cover up embarrassments in more than two dozen accidents. The charges come from Alan Diehl, who served as the senior civilian official at the AF Safety Agency at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, for seven years.
Last October, after raising questions to US Defense Secretary William Perry about 30 accidents, Diehl was transferred against his will to a lesser post at the New Mexico airbase.
The jump in the accident rate and Diehl's well-publicised allegations resulted in Fogleman's decision to convene a four-person "blue-ribbon" panel to review the disputed cases as well as scrutinise the organisation, competency and investigative procedures of the AF safety office.
Fogleman says that the panel, headed by Donald Engen, a retired US Navy Vice-Admiral, one-time National Transportation Safety Board member and former head of the Federal Aviation Administration, is chartered to examine any safety-related area which, in its judgement, may yield recommendations that will improve AF safety.
Fogleman says that the group will have complete access to all safety investigation reports and classified or restricted documents needed to complete their probe. The panel's final report could be issued as early as the end of August 1995.
RAF SAFETY PROGRAMMES
The RAF continues to develop its in-cockpit collision warning system (CWS), which it sees as vital for the future. The CWS can respond to any transponder with a basic Mode A capability. It gives an alarm, direction of threat and, if necessary, avoiding action. Peacock-Edwards says, however: "There is a lot more development to do. We cannot accept a half-baked system just because of a time-scale." Other air forces, with the notable exception of the USAF, are taking an interest the IFS says, but at the moment the RAF is the only air force with an active CWS programme.
Its other, more basic anti-collision programme - aimed particularly at low-level flight - improving "conspicuousness", is well advanced, but research still continues. Having found by experiment that matt black is the colour, which makes an aircraft most conspicuous during the day, several BAe Hawks have been painted black. Use of headlights, where they are external on the airframe, is standard practice during low flying and the Tornado is being examined for an effective external mounting point for headlights, given the aircraft's extensive use at low level (at present the lights are on the main landing gear). A weapons pylon-mounted light is a possibility.
Flight-data recorders (FDRs) are to be fitted to all new RAF aircraft, and retrofitted to all Chinooks and any other aircraft with more than ten years of expected service life. The Chinook FDR-retrofit decision, Peacock-Edwards insists, was taken before the Mull of Kintyre crash in 1994, where a Chinook hit high ground in coastal fog, killing all 29 on board. It was the RAF's most disastrous accident of the year in terms of fatalities. Tornados had all been fitted with FDRs at delivery.
THE FUTURE
Whether or not the CRM concept will be successfully transferred from the civil to the military world still remains to be seen, but those who are trying to effect that transfer see no reason why it should not. As the RAAF's MacKinnon says: "Although our operations are quite different, when it comes to the crunch, you're still just flying an aeroplane."
Source: Flight International
