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Taking Lessons Out of the Air
"Guest Opinion"
Published in Lloyd's List, 1996
As an aviator of considerable experience, I have been commissioned to apply relevant safety and human factors training from my flight practice into the shipping environment.
While there are numerous similarities between these worlds, not surprisingly, there are great differences. Within that set there are two differences that define the nature and depth of many others.
The catastrophic nature of most aviation casualties compelled most operators to comply with highly structured regulations while aviation was still in its youth. The presence of a clear, mutually agreed need and absence of any precedent typically resulted in pragmatic legislation.
Safer and more efficient
In the last two decades, progress towards harmonization of national regulations on an international basis has been impressive, due mainly to the strong legal status of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Such standardization streamlines flight planning and operation since there is a true international standard with relatively minor variance among states (compared to the maritime world).
The resulting simplicity not only makes compliance likely, it makes the entire process of managing international airspace far more efficient and safer for both user and regulator.
The first point lays the stage for my second.
Confront an aviation organization with a problem and you will shortly witness a solution or perhaps a chain of solutions.
Based upon my limited experience within the maritime industry, the gears grind much more slowly. Proposed solutions are met with shrugged shoulders and a litany of reasons why those solutions cannot be implemented.
Pilot Responsibilities
My favorite example is the lingering issue of pilotage. For this purpose it is essential to understand the comparative command responsibilities between the maritime and aviation “masters”.
Maritime law holds the master ultimately responsible for vessel safety; although the practical implementation of that convention is complicated by centuries of tradition distilled to an always unpredictable face-to-face manifestation as the pilot steps aboard the vessel. This is always done during a critical phase of operation.
Regardless of how well the law is understood, there is an implicit potential conflict resident within the master – pilot relationship.
Similarly, international aviation law mandates ultimate safety responsibility to the pilot-in-command. While air traffic control acts in an advisory capacity, the pilot-in-command is expected to maintain appropriate situational awareness and take any and all action necessary for the safe conduct of flight, to include countermanding air traffic control instruction if it is judged to be inappropriate or unsafe.
Having made that choice, the pilot-in-command may spend a considerable amount of time filling out paperwork or otherwise justifying his / her action. Nonetheless, the principle of command responsibility is well founded in both law and practical application.
An aviator could effectively argue that modern charts, updating systems and sensors have largely made obsolete the requirement of a pilot to be physically aboard the vessel. In the aviator’s view, the maritime pilot is about as necessary and helpful as a fireman on an electric train. He would be far more effective placed ashore in a traffic control facility where he can direct the vessel, offer precautionary advise and leave the bridge team intact. Masters know their vessels best and are trained to be a skilled, effective and communicative team.
Standardized international maritime regulation is absolutely essential to efficiency as well as safe operation, yet progress seems glacial from my external vantage point. It is that fundamental problem versus solution orientation which, I believe, is the single greatest segregator of two otherwise similar professions.
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The writer is a corporate pilot with 20 years of international aviation experience. He is a member of the US National Business Aircraft Association’s International Operations Committee as well as the Aviation Space Writer’s Association. He is currently Manager of Safety and Training Systems for Ceres Hellenic Shipping where he assists in the evaluation and development of human factors training for the fleet’s 450 officers and lobbies for pro-active international BRM-CRM legislation and training within IMO, the US and EU.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 23 October 2008 )
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