Introduction to Crew Resource Management — Page 326, Lesson 542

I want to walk you through the introduction to Crew Resource Management — CRM — which is a core part of your human factors training. Let's start with the big picture. These notes are designed to increase your awareness of human factors. Human factors, in aviation, is the study of how people interact with their environment, equipment, and each other — and how those interactions affect safety and performance. CRM, Crew Resource Management, has been developed specifically to improve teamwork on the flight deck. Now, a natural question arises: if CRM is about teamwork, is it relevant to you right now, when you're training as a single pilot The answer these notes give is clear: no. After working through this material, you'll recognise that many of the concepts behind CRM are extremely applicable to this early stage of training. Why? Because CRM is fundamentally a 'life skill' — it applies to all situations, professional and social. It should be viewed as an integral and essential part of your course and your personal development. And here's the key point about skill development: like all skills, CRM needs effort and practice for improvement. Because of that, it has to be introduced as early as possible in your career and then developed alongside your flying skills. You don't wait until you're in a multi-crew jet to start learning how to communicate, manage workload, or make decisions under pressure — you start now. This introduction is split into four main areas, with a summary in the form of Team Skill Requirements. Let me list them so you have the roadmap: - Introduction and Communication. - Situational Awareness. - Decision Making. - Personality, Behaviour and Feedback. - Summary Team Skills. Now, let me tell you the accident that triggered the entire CRM movement. In 1978, a United Airlines aircraft experienced an undercarriage problem on the approach to Portland, Oregon. The Captain placed the aircraft in a hold close to the airport to consider the situation. After forty minutes, the fault had been resolved. Yet after a further twenty-four minutes, the aircraft — still in the hold, perfectly serviceable, only a few miles from the airport — ran out of fuel and crashed with loss of life. Think about that: a perfectly serviceable aircraft, with the problem already fixed, crashed because it ran out of fuel while circling a few miles from the airport. That accident triggered United Airlines to move aviation into a new era. The accident, and many others like it, were finally investigated fully. This deep investigation into the human factors contributing to the accidents had to be given time and substantial financial support to achieve results. And from this, CRM was eventually born. The critical shift in thinking was this: pilot error was no longer taken at face value as the cause of the accident. Research into human factors and the development of aviation CRM courses and training began. Instead of just saying "the pilot made a mistake," investigators started asking why — what factors in the cockpit environment, communication, decision-making, and teamwork led to that error? Let's move into the first main area: Communication. During this period, a number of areas are examined relating to the actual transfer of information and indeed the way that information is transmitted. We start with Effective Communication. There is a strong tendency for a person transmitting information to assume that it is unambiguous and will be received exactly as intended. That assumption is dangerous. The exercise in one-way communication — where only the transmitter is allowed to speak — highlights that this is not the case. When only one person can speak and the receiver cannot ask questions or clarify, the successful completion of the exercise varies considerably for a variety of reasons. This demonstrates the need for concise communication and the ability of the transmitter to structure their message clearly.