Professional Pilot, January 2019

Improving collective situational awareness E very new year begets resolutions The goal of a resolution is to start something new eliminate a past practice or improve the status quo Unfortunately most resolutions fail In 2015 US News revealed that only 20 of those who enact resolutions will follow them through to completion Forbes puts the number far worse at 8 The self awareness that resolutions have failed in combination with the arrival of the holiday credit card bills is one reason the 3rd Monday in January has been dubbed the most depressing day of the year also called Blue Monday The disappointing inability to fulfill a lifestyle resolution has a negligible long term effect on most of the general population On the other hand career based changes in behavior can produce dramatic results especially for pilots Operating practices can be continually assessed to enhance safety and reduce risk and the new year is a great time to resolve to make changes Improving Situational Awareness SA is a worthy goal 66 PROFESSIONAL PILOT January 2019 SA or lack thereof is often implicated as a causal or contributing factor in aviation incidents and accidents Dr Mica Endsley a leading expert on SA and author of over 200 academic papers on the topic defines it as the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future Its unlikely many pilots could recite such an academic definition verbatim during their next recurrent training nor would they need to Knowing whats going on The concept of SA is colloquially described as knowing whats going on around you More precisely its when ones perception of reality matches reality Accurate SA depends on 3 elements perception comprehension and projection After sampling cues from the environment perception information must be processed and understood comprehension Projection involves predicting what may happen if the current course of action continues The whole SA thought loop can be described as what has happened what is happening and what may happen The most difficult task for humans seems to be predicting future events The US Marines use the phrase Being left of bang to describe the state of identifying and avoiding undesirable situations being right of bang is after something bad has occurred This concept is so critical to survival for deployed Marines that in 2006 General James Mattis Commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force sought the development of a training program to identify and remove combat threats through enhanced SA According to authors Patrick Van Horne and Jason Riley 2 prerequisites are needed to maintain accurate SA and predict outcomes 1 a mindset and mentality to actively search for deviations and 2 the knowledge of why something differs from baseline The same is required of pilots Individual vs collective SA SA is most often discussed in terms of the individual rather than the group Thats understandable given the internet houses a plethora of video examples depicting loss of individual situational awareness Unfortunately focusing only on the individual ignores the role the group dynamic plays in the situational awareness paradigm Collective Situational Awareness CSA is the aggregate measure of SA among all participants in a situation Much like the weakest link defines the total strength of a chain the person with the lowest SA tends to drag the overall SA down If that happens safety is compromised and risk increases Direct and unambiguous communication rigorous adherence to Standard Operating Procedures SOPs avoiding complacency and automation management all improve CSA Despite the best intentions performance in each of these areas has the potential to wane over time Clear communication with ATC One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to communications is the use of slang Years ago a general aviation CLEAR COMMUNICATIONS What has happened What is happening What may happen Crew resource management is a way to ensure that both pilot and copilot retain a high degree of situational awareness on the flightdeck By Shannon Forrest President Turbine Mentor ATP CFII Challenger 604 605 Gulfstream IV MU2B