
Incident Response: The crash of BA38 - sricola
https://medium.com/@sricola/crisis-management-4c1b570d8c0e
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cbanek
I always find it really interesting how people handle crisis situations. Some
stop in shocked horror. Others run, both away and toward the crisis. Some
people get shaken up, while others can remain calm, and even turn commanding
and controlling (not in an egotistical way) and people follow their orders,
sometimes not even knowing the person.

Of course, what I've noticed is that once the crisis is over, the calm people
start kind of doing their own processing and freakouts. I guess that's what
courage is - freaking out later.

~~~
cyberferret
Speaking as a former commercial pilot - the training involved in getting to
that seat involved SO much immersion in emergency situations, that it became
pretty much a habitual response to react in a methodological fashion.

We often joked that we should have got a 50% discount on the twin engine
training component during flight school because we spent more time flying
around on one engine instead of two!

Personally, I don't think I used to handle emergency situations well _before_
I did my flying training. There was no neural plan to approach a problem in a
sensible way. AFTER I completed my 12 month long commercial pilot course
though, I had a whole new way to approach a critical problem, with a view to
assessing, managing, controlling, eliminating and processing it.

I guess it is the same with people trained in the military, police, medical
first responders etc. You become accustomed to seeing the parts of the problem
that are outside your control, and parts that you can effect an immediate
difference. You also learn to ignore the 'noise' and to quickly change your
course of action and decision making as soon as you realise you are on the
wrong track.

It is certainly something that can be learned/taught, I believe. But you are
right in that this process also essentially masks the human side of things,
and can create problems later, when your core personality comes back into play
and you start asking the 'what if' questions. At least, that is the way it
manifests for myself personally, after the crisis is past.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Private pilot with a commercial rating here.

One of the things most people don't know is how much commercial flight is
dominated by checklists. I always joked if a UFO ever landed on the wing of a
777 the pilot would look over and say "Bob, what's the checklist for UFO
landings?"

There's a ton of crisis response and critical thinking, sure, but one of the
"tricks" is so much mental clutter is completely eliminated by the appropriate
use of checklists. It frees the crew up to focus on the problem instead of all
the details.

~~~
cyberferret
That is pretty much the crux of it - EVERYTHING is broken down into a step by
step approach to make a decision path easier. For instance, (as you yourself
would have been taught), one of the first things I remember my instructor
hammering home to me in the case of an engine failure (in our single engine
trainer) was:

1\. DO NOT be tempted to do a 180 and turn back to the runway, as it will
result in almost guaranteed death. 2\. Immediately push the nose down to
maintain airspeed. 3\. Look for a road/field/clearing 30 degrees to each side
of the nose to put the aircraft down in

Just remembering those 3 critical things as soon as you hear the engine cut
out just eliminates those crucial seconds of wavering and indecision which
could mean the difference between life and death. Just starting the process
off by doing these 3 things kick starts your brain into 'problem solving'
mode, instead of flailing around in panic mode.

There are a LOT more steps afterwards, including ascertaining WHY the engine
failed, communicating with the tower etc., but they are all moot unless you
maximise your time in the air by doing especially (2) and (3).

~~~
cbanek
I think you both have an excellent point about training kicking in. Many years
ago I had done the professional CPR training, and I think even that has made
me think about emergency situations that may happen around me differently.
Also training for hazardous workplaces, etc. I still know it's down in there
somewhere if necessary.

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js2
On United 232, they followed the checklist, but the situation on their hands
was not one the checklist was able to help. If you've never read Captain Al
Haynes' talk, it is well worth it:

 _Anyone who has seen this video seems to have this one question in their
mind, and that is: how did anyone survive an accident of that magnitude? I
think there are five factors that contribute to the degree of success that we
had at Sioux City: that is, luck, communications, preparation, execution, and
cooperation. And I would like to talk about those five things today._

[http://www.clear-prop.org/aviation/haynes.html](http://www.clear-
prop.org/aviation/haynes.html)

~~~
gsnedders
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYHMMMeHic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZYHMMMeHic)
would appear to be a recording of that same lecture, with all the slides and
everything.

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dankohn1
If you like a good ATC video, I love how calmly the pilot and controller react
to this birdstrike:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE)

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russdill
Was really hoping this would be about the cause investigation, which is a
super interesting story

