Crew Resource Management (CRM), what is it and why is it necessary to have it in place? The CRM was designed and implemented after two tragic incidents in aviation, that resulted in death and the destruction of two United Airlines aircraft. Incidents and crashes happen, weather and time do not always dictate when they are going to happen, but some could have possibly been avoided or may be handled more effectively and safely if the CRM was in use at that time. Unfortunately, at times it takes something like these two crashes to happen to make someone sit up and do something about it. Education in readiness in aviation, how to communicate and when it is ok to step in to avoid incidents on any level to ensure the safety of passengers and crew
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Thanks to the birth of the CRM.
Dialogue
The first flight to be reviewed is United Airlines flight 173, that left from John F. Kennedy International Airport December 28th, 1978. Its destination was Portland, Oregon, but had one stop in Denver, Colorado. The aircraft was a DC-8 and that day had on board one hundred and eighty-nine passenger, 6 infants and eight crewmembers. The start of the flight was without incident, and it was documented that the fuel required to get to Portland was 31,900 lbs., on departing Denver they had 46,700 lbs. of fuel. Again, they depart in route to Oregon with no incident until a flight attendant and some passengers states they heard a loud noise and felt a big jolt upon the landing gear being lowered. The captain notified the tower of a possible gear issue. Because they had too much fuel, they were in a twenty-minute holding pattern to burn some of the fuel off. Not enough fuel burned to the captain requests an additional twenty minutes and the flight attendants prepped the cabin for emergency landing and evacuation of the aircraft. During the communication of the cockpit crew it …show more content…
It was also found that the aircraft was burning 220 lbs. per minute, fuel remaining at Portland was 13,800 lbs. This plane had been fitted with a new type of fuel quantity indicating the system, which had eight different gages, so to able to calculate the amount of fuel the tanks had, the captain would have to multiply the digital read by one hundred to know the correct amount of fuel that he had. This change also changed the read for the flight engineer also. The reason for the change, United Airlines said it was implemented to reduce incorrect indications due to misleading 400 Hz signals in the fuel quantity wiring system. All crew had been cleared and certified for the aircraft as well as the aircraft. The crew did not calculate the fuel needed appropriately and the fuel quantity indicating system was accurately indicating fuel levels, all the fuel gauges were visible to the captain and flight engineer. If the CRM had been in place prior to this event, it would have educated the crewmembers about situation awareness, communication and effective problem solving as a team. It would have helped maybe if the cockpit had the manual to review regarding the new fuel gauge system now in place. It seems that during the communications going back and forth, there was a lot of confusing and unresolved conversations going on, with the
Thanks to the birth of the CRM.
Dialogue
The first flight to be reviewed is United Airlines flight 173, that left from John F. Kennedy International Airport December 28th, 1978. Its destination was Portland, Oregon, but had one stop in Denver, Colorado. The aircraft was a DC-8 and that day had on board one hundred and eighty-nine passenger, 6 infants and eight crewmembers. The start of the flight was without incident, and it was documented that the fuel required to get to Portland was 31,900 lbs., on departing Denver they had 46,700 lbs. of fuel. Again, they depart in route to Oregon with no incident until a flight attendant and some passengers states they heard a loud noise and felt a big jolt upon the landing gear being lowered. The captain notified the tower of a possible gear issue. Because they had too much fuel, they were in a twenty-minute holding pattern to burn some of the fuel off. Not enough fuel burned to the captain requests an additional twenty minutes and the flight attendants prepped the cabin for emergency landing and evacuation of the aircraft. During the communication of the cockpit crew it …show more content…
It was also found that the aircraft was burning 220 lbs. per minute, fuel remaining at Portland was 13,800 lbs. This plane had been fitted with a new type of fuel quantity indicating the system, which had eight different gages, so to able to calculate the amount of fuel the tanks had, the captain would have to multiply the digital read by one hundred to know the correct amount of fuel that he had. This change also changed the read for the flight engineer also. The reason for the change, United Airlines said it was implemented to reduce incorrect indications due to misleading 400 Hz signals in the fuel quantity wiring system. All crew had been cleared and certified for the aircraft as well as the aircraft. The crew did not calculate the fuel needed appropriately and the fuel quantity indicating system was accurately indicating fuel levels, all the fuel gauges were visible to the captain and flight engineer. If the CRM had been in place prior to this event, it would have educated the crewmembers about situation awareness, communication and effective problem solving as a team. It would have helped maybe if the cockpit had the manual to review regarding the new fuel gauge system now in place. It seems that during the communications going back and forth, there was a lot of confusing and unresolved conversations going on, with the