RichOffDuty
01-31-2007, 07:10 AM
Taking a quiet moment before take-off to review safety procedures could save lives.
On 2 JULY 1994, lead flight attendant Richard DeMary was waiting for USAir Flight 1016 to land at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. He became aware of rain against the plane and felt the sinking feeling of the plane executing a go-around. Instinctively, DeMary tightened his seatbelt and settled into the proper jumpseat brace position. Seconds later, the warning of “terrain! terrain! terrain!” came from the cockpit and Flight 1016 crashed into a residential area of Charlotte.
Thirty-seven passengers were killed and the captain, first officer, three flight attendants and 15 passengers were injured. The aircraft was destroyed. One of the survivors, DeMary was hailed as a hero for helping a fellow flight attendant and several passengers escape the smouldering wreckage. He says his training helped him keep his head after the plane broke apart and came to a stop, “wrapped around a tree”. “It all comes back to you,” he said. “When I started to yell, ‘release seatbelts and get out,’ I found myself actually releasing my seatbelt and getting out and it became a starting point for action.”
Fortunately, very few cabin crew will ever have to face a situation as disastrous as Flight 1016. However, to maintain a safety focus, a number of aviation companies around the world have implemented a system of “silent review” for cabin crew. In the moments before takeoff, crew are expected to take a few moments to silently run through emergency procedures and take note of environmental conditions – just in case the worst happens.
Some airlines use a mnemonic, a word made up of the first letters of memorized checklist items such as “OLDABC”: Operation of exits; Location of emergency equipment; Drills (brace for impact);
Able-bodied passengers and disabled passengers; Brace position; and Commands such as “grab ankles!” and “get down!” before an impact or sudden stop.
Mica Endsley, president of SA technologies in Georgia, USA, has analysed studies of situational awareness and memory and attention among pilots to understand how silent review can work for flight attendants. “People who have the highest levels of situational awareness are doing contingency planning: thinking about all possible ‘what if?’ scenarios for problems,” she said. “Essentially they are making themselves more receptive to cues and quicker to act because they already have solutions ‘preloaded’ in their working memory. When people who have high levels of expertise do contingency planning, the process of dealing with critical situations looks effortless, whereas other people must spend a lot of time deciding what to do.”
Silent review is an effective way of removing the distractions that can block situational awareness and hinder quick responses.
Kelly Duncan was a flight attendant on an Air Florida flight that crashed at Washington DC in 1982. Kelly survived the accident, but later said she changed her procedures when she went back to work.
“Before, when I’d be taking off, I might have been thinking about clothes or guys or something else. Now I really take the time to refresh my memory on what I’m going to do to prepare myself and be prepared – because I wasn’t prepared at all – I was thinking about a million other things when we took off.”
Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) cabin safety inspector, Susan Rice, says this is a vital activity. “In every pre-flight briefing, flight attendants emphasise the importance of silent review,” she said. “No chatting about the fun you had the night before, no reading magazines. For approximately 60 seconds out of the flight time, conduct a silent review. It could be the difference between making the right decision or the wrong decision.”
CASA cabin safety inspector, Julie Martin, says Australian air carriers use a training video that draws parallels between flight attendants’ silent review and the mental preparation techniques of an Australian skydiving team. Techniques are explained in the video by coaches from the Australian Institute of Sport. “The video emphasises that in activities that cannot be simulated easily on the ground under normal circumstances – evacuations, formation skydiving etc – visualisation and mental review have been identified as a way of preparing for efficient performance of the task.”
Australian civil aviation regulations do not require that flight attendants perform silent review before take-off or landing. However, flight attendants are required to be proficient in emergency procedures and to demonstrate proficiency annually in a test of theory and practice. Silent review has been identified as a tool that assists cabin crew reach and maintain the proficiency required by standards.
“The important thing is to get the message across to cabin crews that this is a tool they can use to help themselves,” Martin said. “The possibility of boredom, monotony and complacency is offset to some degree because no one take-off is going to be the same as other take-offs – the number and makeup of passengers, the sector being flown – aircraft type, exit operation, emergency equipment location may change on each day, or even on each flight.”
Sheryl Gallagher, cabin safety inspector, Airline Operations Branch at CASA, said flight attendants in the South Pacific and Australia are trained to begin silent review after sitting in the jump seat and fastening the shoulder harness and to continue silent review until they release their restraints to perform other duties.
“These flight attendants are encouraged to ‘think outside the square’, to use silent review as a refresher and to adapt to the environment,” she said.
Concentration on safety-related duties can be difficult when cabin crews are responding to passenger requests and performing other service-related duties. However, cabin safety specialists believe the consistent practice of silent review is a basic element of preparation for aircraft emergencies.
Adapted from: “Consistent use of ‘Silent
Review’ supports quick, correct actions”, in
Flight Safety Foundation Cabin Crew Safety,
March-April, 2002.
On 2 JULY 1994, lead flight attendant Richard DeMary was waiting for USAir Flight 1016 to land at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. He became aware of rain against the plane and felt the sinking feeling of the plane executing a go-around. Instinctively, DeMary tightened his seatbelt and settled into the proper jumpseat brace position. Seconds later, the warning of “terrain! terrain! terrain!” came from the cockpit and Flight 1016 crashed into a residential area of Charlotte.
Thirty-seven passengers were killed and the captain, first officer, three flight attendants and 15 passengers were injured. The aircraft was destroyed. One of the survivors, DeMary was hailed as a hero for helping a fellow flight attendant and several passengers escape the smouldering wreckage. He says his training helped him keep his head after the plane broke apart and came to a stop, “wrapped around a tree”. “It all comes back to you,” he said. “When I started to yell, ‘release seatbelts and get out,’ I found myself actually releasing my seatbelt and getting out and it became a starting point for action.”
Fortunately, very few cabin crew will ever have to face a situation as disastrous as Flight 1016. However, to maintain a safety focus, a number of aviation companies around the world have implemented a system of “silent review” for cabin crew. In the moments before takeoff, crew are expected to take a few moments to silently run through emergency procedures and take note of environmental conditions – just in case the worst happens.
Some airlines use a mnemonic, a word made up of the first letters of memorized checklist items such as “OLDABC”: Operation of exits; Location of emergency equipment; Drills (brace for impact);
Able-bodied passengers and disabled passengers; Brace position; and Commands such as “grab ankles!” and “get down!” before an impact or sudden stop.
Mica Endsley, president of SA technologies in Georgia, USA, has analysed studies of situational awareness and memory and attention among pilots to understand how silent review can work for flight attendants. “People who have the highest levels of situational awareness are doing contingency planning: thinking about all possible ‘what if?’ scenarios for problems,” she said. “Essentially they are making themselves more receptive to cues and quicker to act because they already have solutions ‘preloaded’ in their working memory. When people who have high levels of expertise do contingency planning, the process of dealing with critical situations looks effortless, whereas other people must spend a lot of time deciding what to do.”
Silent review is an effective way of removing the distractions that can block situational awareness and hinder quick responses.
Kelly Duncan was a flight attendant on an Air Florida flight that crashed at Washington DC in 1982. Kelly survived the accident, but later said she changed her procedures when she went back to work.
“Before, when I’d be taking off, I might have been thinking about clothes or guys or something else. Now I really take the time to refresh my memory on what I’m going to do to prepare myself and be prepared – because I wasn’t prepared at all – I was thinking about a million other things when we took off.”
Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) cabin safety inspector, Susan Rice, says this is a vital activity. “In every pre-flight briefing, flight attendants emphasise the importance of silent review,” she said. “No chatting about the fun you had the night before, no reading magazines. For approximately 60 seconds out of the flight time, conduct a silent review. It could be the difference between making the right decision or the wrong decision.”
CASA cabin safety inspector, Julie Martin, says Australian air carriers use a training video that draws parallels between flight attendants’ silent review and the mental preparation techniques of an Australian skydiving team. Techniques are explained in the video by coaches from the Australian Institute of Sport. “The video emphasises that in activities that cannot be simulated easily on the ground under normal circumstances – evacuations, formation skydiving etc – visualisation and mental review have been identified as a way of preparing for efficient performance of the task.”
Australian civil aviation regulations do not require that flight attendants perform silent review before take-off or landing. However, flight attendants are required to be proficient in emergency procedures and to demonstrate proficiency annually in a test of theory and practice. Silent review has been identified as a tool that assists cabin crew reach and maintain the proficiency required by standards.
“The important thing is to get the message across to cabin crews that this is a tool they can use to help themselves,” Martin said. “The possibility of boredom, monotony and complacency is offset to some degree because no one take-off is going to be the same as other take-offs – the number and makeup of passengers, the sector being flown – aircraft type, exit operation, emergency equipment location may change on each day, or even on each flight.”
Sheryl Gallagher, cabin safety inspector, Airline Operations Branch at CASA, said flight attendants in the South Pacific and Australia are trained to begin silent review after sitting in the jump seat and fastening the shoulder harness and to continue silent review until they release their restraints to perform other duties.
“These flight attendants are encouraged to ‘think outside the square’, to use silent review as a refresher and to adapt to the environment,” she said.
Concentration on safety-related duties can be difficult when cabin crews are responding to passenger requests and performing other service-related duties. However, cabin safety specialists believe the consistent practice of silent review is a basic element of preparation for aircraft emergencies.
Adapted from: “Consistent use of ‘Silent
Review’ supports quick, correct actions”, in
Flight Safety Foundation Cabin Crew Safety,
March-April, 2002.