Death before embarrassment

One of the best books written by a test pilot/astronaut is Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Mike Collins. He was a USAF test pilot, spacewalked on Gemini 10 and went to the Moon on the historic Apollo 11 mission. Here he talks about an interesting airmanship trap — Death by Embarrassment:   It’s hard to admit a slip or mistake or error. But don’t let that kill you.  

We will not accept any kind of lapses

It became public this month that Qatar Airways has fired all four pilots in the cockpit when their Boeing 777 tail broke a set of runway lights during takeoff from Miami International last September. They mistakenly left from an intersection thousands of feet short of the planned full runway length. It was a serious accident, no doubt. There was a visible tear to the aircraft’s skin, the pressure vessel was damaged, and MIA airport needed some new approach lights. The crew continued with the overwater thirteen plus hour flight uneventfully, apparently unaware of their close brush with disaster. But damage of … Continue reading We will not accept any kind of lapses

A very bad CRM book

I was so looking forward to The Pilot Factor: A fresh look into Crew Resource Management (2014) by Jean Denis Marcellin. Had heard about it online. Cool cover picture has airline pilot ripping off uniform shirt to show Superman costume underneath. Some glowing reviews on Amazon. Then I got the book and started reading. Oh dear. It’s a self-published stretched padded 100 pages with no original research, a limited understanding of CRM history, editing issues, no common thread, and no new personal insights. At the end all I really noticed was that there wasn’t a single mention of that pilot-turned-Superman from the … Continue reading A very bad CRM book