Three Important Aspects of CRM.

       Issue 411                                                                                                                 April 2014

 

Three Important Aspects of CRM/ Communication, Communication, and Communication

 

 

 

NASA sponsored the first workshop on the topic of Cockpit (later “Crew”) Resource Management (CRM) in 1979. That workshop was a direct outgrowth of research begun in the mid-seventies at the NASA Ames Research Center. This work was aimed at addressing some of the problems underlying several accidents (notably the 1972 L-1011 Everglades accident and the B737 that crashed in the same year attempting a go-around at Chicago’s Midway airport). One of the early observations of this research was that many of these problems seemed to be related to decision-making, crew coordination, leadership, and communications skills.

In 1986, NASA Ames convened a workshop1 to review the progress made in CRM and to explore methods of improving training that stressed coordinated crew performance.

In the ongoing evolution of CRM, current training acknowledges that human error cannot be totally eliminated. Therefore, CRM now focuses on threat and error management and the development of countermeasures which are centered on error avoidance, trapping errors before they are committed, and mitigating error consequences. This threat and error management approach relies on a non-punitive safety culture in which errors are examined in the light of “lessons learned” in order to facilitate better training.

While the ASRS CALLBACK newsletter regularly provides such lessons in all aspects of aviation, this month’s issue focuses on communication, one of the many elements of effective Crew Resource Management.

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/cb/cb_411.pdf