Safety Matters June12_Gil WolinNov06 22/05/2012 09:48 Page 2
SAFETY MATTERS STERILE COCKPIT reminder of that function; but the myopialike focus on flying the airplane of the ideal professional pilot faces many challenges. The introduction of cockpit activities into the scenario immediately challenges the sterility of the cockpit and the crew’s focus on the job at hand. The infections arrive into the sterile environment of the cockpit via many channels and from multiple sources. It can be sourced from innocent conversation about flying the plane, the job, family issues – and so on. The sterile cockpit, however, lays the foundation for focused flying absent the distractions and dubious engagements with others. This means limiting exchanges to standard topics: check list, procedures and briefing approaches. No conversations about bad dates, great vacations, excellent off-day movie experiences, or the wonders of the Chief Pilot. Sadly, other aviators violate the sterility protocol with the same nonchalance as drivers without turn signals violate traffic laws. They know in the abstract, but can’t seem to help themselves when stricken by the urge to speak. Aside from rated pilots, other passengers routinely contribute to violating the sterility of business aircraft cockpits – children, sometimes pets, the guests of passengers or regular passengers themselves. Perhaps the most uncomfortable issue for many pilots is enforcing a sterile cockpit when colleagues, supervisors or some other flight-deck newcomer arrives and wants to participate. This should be no problem for the professionals piloting most FAR 91 aircraft, and only a small issue for all others. There’s no reason for it to be a problem even when nothing more than a curtain separates cabin from cockpit. And it’s not always a human causing the distraction: the aircraft itself can violate the spirit of a sterile cockpit by sounding off an alert annunciating a failure of an electrical system component. There can be nothing like the blare of a horn or the toot of an alarm to put you off-balance. As we saw above, an errant cell phone, MP3 music player, a hyper focus on a laptop, even aviation technology can combine to give the cockpit a serious case of cockpit noise infection also.
THE ONGOING SEARCH FOR A CURE… It’s certainly no surprise that when cockpit crew allow their attention to divert from their primary task that flight safety can and sometimes does suffer. We have decades of examples punctuated by dozens of air carrier accidents, business jet accidents and incidents, all of which occurred because flight
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crew allowed their attention to divert from the task at hand – flying the airplane. When they became occupied with items totally unrelated to flying, serious, flightsafety steps got missed: setting proper flaps prior to take-off, failure to lower landing gear on approach, monitoring altitude assignments or waypoints on instrument approaches, failure to activate engine and wing anti-ice when needed. What is surprising (discouraging even) is the persistence of violations to sterilecockpit practices more than three decades after the FAA acted to resolve the issue – at least, for commercial operations. The effort became formal in 1981 when the FAA enacted FAR 121.542 and FAR 135.100 to help curb the growing list of incidents and accidents related to the problem. Almost immediately tagged the “sterile cockpit rule,” these regulations specifically prohibit crew member performance of nonessential duties or activities while the aircraft is involved in taxi, takeoff, landing, and all other flight operations conducted below 10,000 msl, except cruise flight. While not specifically required in FAR 91 operations, most operators employing NBAA best practices in their operations enforce their own variation of cockpit sterility – essentially applying the same standard www.AvBuyer.com
as required under Parts 121 and 135. Sterile Cockpit Rules should be in force and enforced under the following circumstances: • Between engine start and 10,000 msl the aircraft cockpit should be devoid of conversation or any activity unrelated to flying the airplane, including time in climb; • From the start of a standard descent to the ramp, with extra enforcement starting at 10,000 msl; • En route, allow a lower standard of enforcement; as long as you keep the focus on flying the airplane a bit of non-flying conversation is reasonable – though not all operations allow so much as a peep that isn’t about the airplane or the flight.
STERILIZING THE COCKPIT – THE BASICS The following briefing was designed for everyone on the needs and reasons for maintaining a sterile cockpit. •
Start your Sterile Cockpit Requirement with the pre-flight inspection of the aircraft; if possible and viable, include any passengers, rated and otherwise, and include them in a pre-flight Aircraft Index see Page 4