MY 2 CENTS’ WORTH
THE NOT-SO-NEW CRM
I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A SIMPLE MENTAL TOOL TO KEEP YOU SAFE: RISK RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (RRM). IT’S A TOOL CHESLEY SULLENBERGER USED FOR 14 YEARS BEFORE HE FAMOUSLY LANDED HIS AIRBUS A320 IN THE HUDSON RIVER. IT’S ALSO A TOOL HE INSTRUCTED HIS STUDENTS TO USE WHEN HE TAUGHT CREW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT U.S. AIRWAYS. IT’S A TOOL YOU CAN USE IN YOUR HELICOPTER TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS, WHETHER YOU’RE FLYING SINGLE-PILOT OR MULTICREW.
HOW DID RRM COME ABOUT?
The short answer is: By necessity. From 1989 two choices: (1) Close your doors or (2) Set up chose the latter.
permits an individual operator to design a needs and requirements.” Under the AQP, departures from traditional requirements, level of safety. For pass/fail purposes, pilots that test both technical and crew resource management skills.
8
John Ross initially developed RRM for U.S. the pilots wouldn’t use it,” Ross observed. With that thought in mind, he created what he calls with them for quick reference. Ross said it was slow to catch on, but when accepted it turned around U.S. Airways’ terrible accident rate. Today, because of its success, RRM has been adopted by most major airlines.
WHAT IS RRM?
teaches) to fully buy in to the concept. Today 60 percent of the grading in simulator evaluation is based on RRM. A pilot can fail a checkride if they do not demonstrate that they have a thus breaking a link in an error chain forming.”
This mindset needs to be adopted in helicopter aviation. Think of HAI president Matt Zucarro’s RRM tool allows a pilot to make prudent decisions before he or she needs Damn Helicopter.”
RRM is illustrated on the card in two parts. First, think of a target. The target is green in the middle with a yellow ring surrounding the green, and a red ring on the outside. Think of being in the green as where you want to be when there is no task loading. There’s no stress. If a pilot or his crew feel they’re slipping out of this green situation with increased tasking, thus creating potential loss of situational awareness, their situation can slip into the yellow cautionary range, which if unchecked could then possibly lead into the red—a true emergency. Visualize situational awareness as gradually shrinking down to tunnel vision with increased task loading.
Next think of the four letters ABCD: Assess the situation, Balance resources, Communicate what you see/don’t see, Do your action, then Debrief the results.
Even though RRM had been proven to work at U.S. Airways for years, it took two years for pilots at Southwest Airlines (where Ross now
The AQP evaluates human factors. At U.S. Airways they had CRM training but Ross wanted something beyond that. He needed a very simple process that could be used by was called threat and error management (TEM), which evolved into RRM. That’s when Ross came up with his ABCD, green/yellow/red idea.
simple, it worked. There wasn’t another major incident for 14 years, that is until Sullenberger’s Ross attributes the successful outcome of that been trained in RRM.
THE RRM PROCESS IN MORE DETAIL
Aircrews continually assess the color of their changed), or red where there is the potential for error? Think of the RRM tool as a balancing act, where you’re striving to remain in the green and stay on top of the situation.
By Randy Mains
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86