Crew Resource Management

The Crew ( or Cockpit ) Resource Management Training ( CRM) is a training for aircrew, which is to educate and improve the non-technical skills in order to prevent aircraft accidents caused by human error. It is about cooperation, situational awareness, leadership and decision making and the associated communication.

The CRM training is as specified in JAR- OPS, binding for flight crews in commercial and military aviation, and must be repeated within three years. CRM aims to raise awareness of the fact that apart from the technical understanding on board an aircraft ( Technical Skills ), the communication and the relationships between the members of the crew are crucial to master critical situations. An important element of CRM is the use and disclosure of all relevant information within the crew, both between the pilots as well as the interplay between the cockpit and cabin crew.

Background

CRM originated from a NASA workshop in 1979 that had an increase flight safety to the target. The investigations of NASA have shown that the main reason for serious aviation accidents was human error and the main problems of the on-board communication, conflicts of jurisdiction were the indecisiveness of the pilots within the Department and in part. Symptomatic of this was the air disaster at Tenerife.

Another negative example is the crash of a Boeing 737-400 British Midland on January 8, 1989, when after damage to the left engine accidentally right, intact engine was turned off. The latter was under full load produces strong vibrations, which is why the captain of the machine mistakenly looked at the right engine as damaged. Although had been clear, among other cabin crew before, on which of the two engines, the damage had previously occurred, this important information was not communicated to the commander and not caught up with this. The machine struck 900 meters in front of the runway. 49 people did not survive the crash.

The CRM training has evolved over time from both aviation authorities and airlines and is now mandatory for all pilots in the FAA (USA) and JAA (Europe).

Examples

• Captain Al Haynes, pilot of United Airlines flight 232, said that the CRM had saved his life and that of many other passengers when his DC-10 in Sioux City crash landed in 1989.
• The ditching of U.S. Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River was successful by providing both pilots only by the functioning CRM.

Swell

• Aviation Safety