Premium On Safety - Issue 11, 2013 - 3

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the response team, attaining basic situational awareness, and making key notifications are not the only things going on
in the first hour after an accident, but
they are common to most responses. It’s
worth evaluating whether your ERP needs
any structural modifications to launch
smoothly. Apart from full-scale drills, you
can check your ability to receive an accident call or activate your response team
in simple ways that boost confidence and
keep your ERP top-of-mind. These only

involve a few people for brief periods,
so they don’t impact ongoing operations
and can be done as frequently as needed
to stay sharp. With the proper “this is
only a drill” advisory up front, a scenario
can be called in to various locations
to confirm how well your accident call
protocol works. This drill can be ended
once a designated supervisor is notified,
keeping things contained, yet triggering
important teachable points. Likewise, an
ERP activation test can be run just up

to the point all response team members
have checked in. Try this inside and outside of working hours to understand what
it will take to get your team connected,
as well as keep them cognizant of their
ERP responsibilities. Look for a follow-on
article in the next issue with additional
ERP considerations.
Paul Ratte served 25 years as a U.S. Coast
Guard aviator before becoming Director of
Aviation Safety Programs at USAIG.

BEST PRACTICES

The Hazard of Automation Over-reliance
By LEE SMITH

The use of
automation in
the cockpit for
aircraft control
and navigation
has been nearly
universally
adopted, resulting in more efficient operations
and reduced
flight crew workload. The goal of any automated system is
to reduce the opportunity for human error,
and while cockpit automation has largely
achieved this goal, over-reliance on automation has introduced the potential for new
types of errors by flight crews.
Misuse of cockpit automation systems is
a frequent topic in National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports as
well as National Aeronautics and Space
Administration Aviation Safety Reporting
System (NASA ASRS) reports. Many of these
reveal symptoms of pilot complacency with
respect to cockpit automation. It’s common
for flight crews to remark “why is it doing
that?” or “how did that happen?” regarding
an autopilot not performing as expected.
Usually these are taken lightly, however they
are actually a reflection that the crew is out
of the loop, a potentially dangerous state
when it comes to automation.
A study of NASA ASRS reports by the

Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) in 2010 found
that automation misuse typically falls into
one of four categories.
The FSF found that flight crews may fail to
notice an automation mode change following
an event, such as the autopilot reverting to
heading mode following an FMS flight plan
discontinuity. Flight crews may also fail to
cross-check automation settings for correctness, such as ensuring that the correct leg
is activated following a change to the FMS
flight plan. Additionally, flight crews may fail
to monitor the performance of automation to
ensure it is behaving as expected, such as
monitoring vertical navigation performance to
ensure a crossing restriction will be achieved.
Finally, flight crews may use automation in an
inappropriate manner, such as attempting to
salvage a poor approach with the autopilot
rather than disconnecting and flying manually.
The root cause of each of these types of
errors is the over-reliance on automation by
the flight crew, which has become prevalent
at the personal and organizational level at
many operations. This manifests itself as the
“gear up, flaps up, autopilot on” standard
operating procedure, or the “I’m not paid any
more if the autopilot is off” attitude. Over
time, over-reliance on cockpit automation
will atrophy basic airmanship abilities, setting up a feedback loop in which flight crews
grow still more dependent on automation.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
has taken note of this trend, and earlier this

year published a Safety Alert For Operators
(SAFO) encouraging them to promote opportunities for flight crews to exercise manual
flying skills. The SAFO notes that “continuous
use of [automation] systems does not reinforce a pilot’s knowledge and skills in manual
flight operations... [and] could lead to degradation of the pilot’s ability to quickly recover
the aircraft from an undesired state.”
Of course, this assumes that pilots
possess the basic airmanship abilities
in the first place, which is not always the
case when it comes to less experienced
pilots operating highly automated aircraft.
Overconfidence in cockpit automation may
allow these pilots to put themselves into situations that they would not otherwise have
encountered and might not have the experience to handle appropriately.
When used properly, automated control
and navigation systems are tremendously
beneficial tools in the cockpit. Not having to
manually fly straight-and-level for hundreds
of miles can decrease fatigue and increase
situational awareness when attention is
focused on staying ahead of the aircraft.
However, any tool can be misused, and as
shown a few years ago, cockpit automation
can also allow overly complacent pilots to
overfly their destination by a hundred miles.
Lee Smith is an ATP and CFII rated pilot
with a background in corporate and Part
135 operations.
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