Should the Boeing 737-MAX Fly Again?

Should the Boeing 737-MAX fly again?

The simple answer is, yes, the Boeing 737-MAX should and, I’m certain, will fly again. But the next question is even more important: is the airline industry prepared to fly the MAX? The answer to that is neither simple nor optimistic. Let me explain.

First, here’s my perspective. I have over 5,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in the Boeing 737-800 as an American Airlines captain. When the airline began to integrate the MAX into our fleet, I went through what I would classify as a very minimal “differences” training program: this is different; this functions in a new way that is actually better though counter-intuitive; this is completely different and ultimately, muscle memory and patterned responses must all be relearned. And that half-day of “training” was actually six months before we’d even put the first MAX into flight ops. Like anyone could or would remember the details for the six months until the jets arrived, or could refresh their “differences” knowledge by reviewing the digital media put together by the Fleet Training staff.

            That’s the reality of training at a major airline, where the benefit of a high-time pilot group is mortgaged by the airline bean-counters who will cut the training to the bare minimum because “pilots will figure it out on the line.” That was my exact experience after over 15,000 MD-80 flight hours as I transitioned into the 737 fleet. The old workhorse MD-80 was a simplistic, 1960s-era round-dial dinosaur compared to the advanced flight management systems on the 737-800. Everything from navigation to displays to engine power management was brand new and generation ahead of the Old Maddog I was used to. Don’t get me wrong—I loved the brand new -800 and she was a definite step up from the Douglass world.

            But the training, even for a twenty-four-year captain, was like drinking from the firehose or as we’d say in my Air Force pilot days, like cramming ten pounds of shit into a five-pound bag. “It’s alright,” the training folks would say, “You’ll figure it out on the line.” And I did, of course, with the gracious help of a fleet of highly experienced First Officers. Even so, after my initial qualification checkride, I told our Fleet Manager, “You know, coming off the Jurassic Jet, I sure could have used a couple more days to work through this training syllabus.” “Yeah,” he sighed, “When we originally designed the syllabus, it was two days longer. But the bean counters at headquarters said, ‘eighty-percent of the pilots could do it in less time,’ so they shaved two days off to save money.”

            I’d seen that before, as an MD-80 Check Airman myself. The FAA had designated several challenging airports as requiring additional pilot instruction to ensure flight safety. One of our MD-80 “special” airports requiring captains to fly their first approach with a Check Airman was Montrose, a ski destination in the Colorado Rockies. As a Check Airman, I’d be given training on an actual flight into Montrose by another Check Airman who’d already been “trained.” In my case, the checkout flight was with a Check Airman buddy who’d been to Montrose exactly once, on his “training” flight. The next day, I’d do the same for another Check Airman, after being their exactly once myself. Get the picture?

            Now, fast forward to the MAX’s return. Of course, the FAA will mandate some “training.” And of course, the airline bean-counters will try to shave off training dollars, to cut the cost, to let pilots, especially the very capable and experienced major carrier pilots, “get it on the line.” But the problem with that is there are no high-time MAX pilots, unlike the ones who helped me through my first 500 hours on the 737-800. And no one’s been flying the MAX in years, so there’s really no experience base to draw on by pilots in either seat.

            The Allied Pilots Association representing the 15,000 pilots of American Airlines says the MAX training program is inadequate in several areas but the one that stands out is timing: every three years for this vital training, says APA, is totally inadequate. And I totally agree.

            Make no mistake about it: the American Airlines pilots are the best in the world and thankfully for all concerned, they’re represented by a strong union with plenty of safety and training expertise. That’s why there have been no problems with MAX flights done by any major U.S. carrier. But what about the small carriers in developing countries with little or no longstanding training, supervision and oversight budget or practice? With low-time, neophyte pilots? The Lion Airs of the world?

The Allied Pilots Association is the canary in the coal mine: if they’re concerned, so am I. If the American Airlines pilots need more and more frequent MAX training, so do the Lion Air pilots. Yes, the MAX can, should, and will fly again. But not until the training is right so the pilots are ready. Period.

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Air Travel and Anarchy

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nothing brings out the worst in people like air travel. Sadly, flying has become the crossroads of selfishness and self-righteousness, a road-rage hybrid unmasked, more akin to mob action as a result of being seated together rather than in isolated vehicles, but angry, loose-tempered and looking for a reason to go off just the same. Throw in a fashionable side order of latent outrage at anything individually determined to be offensive and you have the airborne tinderbox that regularly explodes into passenger non-compliance, misconduct, diversion and ultimately, yet another ruined travel experience.

Maybe in days past there was less opportunity to exact compensation for perceived slights. Maybe there’s righteous consumer outrage over the corpcomm buzzword “inconvenience” overlaid on any type of service disaster. Mix the two well, sprinkle with a litigious seasoning and pour into a social media crust, then bake on the internet for less than thirty minutes. We’re serving up outrage–and selfies–get it while it’s hot.

That tired, sad urban legend-gone-digitally viral cry for attention would be little more than a Spam-ish nuisance except for one elephantine reality: it’s dangerous as hell in flight.

In a world that prizes personal choice, self-importance, sacrosanct self-image, and the all-important digital self-reflection (“That’s us in ____!”), compliance is a dirty word. Problem is, flying is a difficult, at times risky endeavor that relies on discipline and its ugly stepchild, compliance, from the cockpit all way back to the aft lav.

Unfortunately, the all-important “me” is societally- and media-sanctioned, so individual choices are thereby easily disconnected from consequences in the aircraft emergency crew commands as well as in the midair violence wall-papered over in corp-speak as “passenger non-compliance.” That often starts with choices easily blamed these days on those offering the choice rather than those making the choice itself.

Crewmembers are attacked, other passengers are physically (or worse) assaulted, but the individual acting, “non-complying,” is seldom held responsible for the consequences of an individual choice.  Sadly, it gets so much worse, so much more dangerous.

But I can hear it already: yeah, but I’m me. That’s a two-headed monster–first, the perception that others are the problem and second, that you aren’t one of the “others,” but you are. The command “take nothing with you” in an emergency evacuation is based on the life-and-death certification of the aircraft: 90 seconds, timed with a full load of passengers from evacuation command to everyone safely clear of an aircraft that had no luggage aboard.

In real life, enough of the “I’m me” others refuse to comply with the command to take nothing with you (“I’m not leaving without my [fill in self-absorbed priority]!”) at the expense of those seated at the far end of the tested, proven, but now destroyed time to escape a burning aircraft. That can and will be fatal, yet the death of some is lower on the hierarchy of self in an “everybody gets a trophy” legacy of some “others.”

Airline regulatory agencies like the FAA and NTSB do little to actually enforce compliance. Even beyond the glaring headlines attending an aircraft emergency evacuation sabotaged by passenger non-compliance, there’s little that regulators can and will do to eliminate flight risk factors other than to urge passenger “compliance.”

There again, we careen headlong into the absolution of “I’m me.”  The FAA recently recognized the disastrous inflight potential for a lithium ion battery fire in a very commonplace piece of technology. The remedy? Screening? Enforcement? Legal consequences?

Nope. Just, “we told you not to.”

Granted,  you’re not one of the “others” who’d readily drag their bags along on an emergency evacuation at the risk of other passengers’ lives. You don’t over consume alcohol and disrupt a flight. And you don’t ignore the toothless “prohibition” and bring your very expensive but hazardous phone on board.

But they’re out there, self-justified, media-enriched, societally excused, and dangerous as hell.

Better hope “they” aren’t on “your” flight.

Why NOT remotely piloted airliners?

In the wake of several recent airliner losses, talk in the media once again turns to the futuristic concept of remotely piloted passenger jets.

A very bad idea, as I explain on Mashable.com. Just click here to read, or use the link below.

 

http://mashable.com/2015/04/16/aircraft-accidents/

 

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Your Pilot Isn’t Thinking About Your Connection–and That’s Good.

 

There’s a blessed silence in the cockpit right before pushback, immediately after the number one flight attendant reports “cabin ready,” and slams the cockpit door securely shut. Before that, the usual boarding chaos filters through the open cockpit door, the clatter of catering the forward galley, ramp workers stepping in to deliver some cargo paperwork, maybe some aircraft maintenance techs wrapping up required service or repairs.

But the noise and activity isn’t all that ends with the door slam. We call it “sterile cockpit,” an industry-wide concept rooted in the best Crew Resource Management (CRM) practices that dictates all non-flight essential conversation ceases in order to focus solely on the prescribed, often complex procedures required to fly the jet.

In other words, leave all distractions behind and keep your head in the game. And I take that concept a step further–I clear my mind of everything except procedures (there are a multitude) and situational awareness: he’s moving, we’ll wait … wingtip clearance here … wind shift, at least for now … we’re heavier than planned.

Not just sterile cockpit verbally, but mentally as well. When you’re moving eighty tons of metal and a hundred sixty warm bodies, there’s no room for distraction. My airline (like most, I assume) has done a good job of minimizing outside considerations through the basic premises from which the pilot-in-command operates.

For me that means I’ve “pre-worried” about the extraneous considerations–both yours and mine–and for the good of all, I’ve put them aside, compartmentalized them, and now look beyond them. When I say yours, I mean your down line connection, your time schedule, your reason for flying whether business or pleasure. Mine often overlap yours–my days off, my family plans, my important events, even my own physical stress of time zone shifts, late hours that could creep later, and my pay considerations.

Doesn’t mean these concerns are invalid, unimportant or dismissed–they’re just not on my mind as I balance crucial flight variables as they unfold. They’re fully addressed in the basic premises of our airline operation, stipulated in a hierarchy a passenger might not like, but which makes the most sense for a safe flight operation:

First, safety, second, passenger comfort and third, schedule. Yes, your connection, even your arrival time, is in third place. Just remember, I have similar personal concerns and I’m putting them completely aside as well. Here’s why.

A recent Flight Safety Institute report highlighted one of the factors that contributes to the comparatively high accident rate per flight hour experienced by air ambulance operators. One factor mentioned was the very real life or death pressure perceived by the pilots: if we don’t land on this spot, at this time, regardless of circumstances, a life may be lost.

That’s a very vivid and understandable urgency that would be difficult to put out of a pilot’s awareness. Nonetheless, the air ambulance operators with the lowest accident rates are the ones who’ve put CRM at the forefront, refocusing on flight safety limitations as a governing principle and setting aside all else.

 

Now, your kid’s birthday, your business or other event, yes, they’re important–so are mine. But they aren’t life or death, are they? But as flight distractions, whether it’s an air ambulance or an air carrier, they could easily become exactly that.

From the moment we push back, the clock in my captain’s mind runs on weight, not minutes: how many pounds of fuel do I have, which translates into the ability to remain aloft. So, when you (or maybe a commuting crewmember, to be fair, asks “can we fly faster to make up time,” the real question in my mind is “can we afford to gamble by shortening our available fuel duration, and to what purpose and at what cost?” Less holding time available at our destination, maybe requiring a more stressful approach? No way.

The answer to “purpose” would be to shave off 5 to 10 minutes–hardly worth it–at the price of degrading our ability to arrival delays because of an increased fuel burn for speed. The question “can we top this weather rather than circumnavigating the area to save time” brings the opposite answer: maybe, but the more prudent option is to avoid–so we’ll spend the extra time (sorry about your connection–and mine) to do that.

And if you think we as pilots don’t have crucial connections, think again: besides losing pay in a misconnect, there’s more. For many crewmembers, even a ten minute late arrival can mean the difference between getting home or spending a night in a hotel at their own expense and losing a day with family. Sure, I eliminate that worry by not commuting, but crew base positions are determined by seniority–junior pilots and flight attendants can report to work and receive the official notice, “as of next month, you are based a thousand miles from home.”

That all needs to wait outside the cockpit door. Inside, we must focus on the vital flight considerations that trump all distractions.

Again, arrival time–and connections–hang in the balance, but that’s a distant third place behind safety. So yes, I’m not thinking about your connection–and you should be glad. Because that’s exactly what you’ve paid me for, and you deserve no less than the safest, most professional flight, no matter how long that takes.

 Fly the jet firsthand: These 25 short essays in the best tradition of JetHead put YOU in the cockpit and at the controls of the jet.

Some you’ve read here, many have yet to appear and the last essay, unpublished and several years in the writing,  I consider to be my best writing effort yet.

Own a piece of JetHead, from Amazon Books and also on Kindle.