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8 Core Competencies for Flight Crew
ICAO, IATA and IFALPA agreed on a set of 8 core competencies for flight crew covering all phases of a pilot’s career, encompassing selection, ab-initio training, assessment for skills test, recurrent training and evaluation
ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization:
The International Civil Aviation Organization is a specialized
agency of the United Nations. It changes the principles and techniques
of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development
of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.
IATA - The International Air Transport Association is a trade association
of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a
cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines,
IATA also organized tariff conferences that served as a forum for price
fixing.
IFALPA - The International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations is a
worldwide association of national pilots' associations. IFALPA was
founded in 1948 and is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The phenomenon of “competency”.
Why is it important? Why is not enough for a pilot to just follow the
instructions and simply complete a task after task? And, on the whole,
how is it related to safety? The links between all these are direct.
A fully-licensed commercial pilot does not necessarily
mean a competent commercial pilot able to properly operate in the
multi-crew environment.
A pilot educated only through the task-based method is not enough for
the industry today. A professional without relevant competences
mastered up to a certain level is not enough to ensure the highest
quality and, most importantly, enhanced safety in dynamic aviation.
Thus, who is a competent pilot then? Definitely, it is the one greatly juggling all the technical knowledge. But, it is also the one prepared to professionally apply these technical skills in absolutely unexpected, sometimes stressful, situations.
Considering a number of such examples and analyzing the way pilots
react to extraordinary situations it became clear that there is a need
to check if existing pilot training approaches and methods adhere to real conditions in the cockpit, if training programs are not outdated and bring true value.
Consequently, it triggered the following conclusion: in order to
properly handle “human factor” in various extraordinary circumstances,
technical background has to go hand in hand with the core competencies.
These were not made up just for fun. Each of the competencies
was presented after thorough examinations of pilots’ performance,
reasons and circumstances of minor/major accidents. These competences is
the result of continuous safety analyses carried out by the experts.”
8 Core Competencies for Flight Crew
"A
group of related behaviors, based on job requirements, which describe
how to effectively perform a job and what proficient performance looks
like. They include the name of the competency, a description, and a list
of behavioral indicators."
In
layman terms, the definition means that the core competencies are the
areas a professional pilot should master. It is clearly defined how a
pilot should behave and perform in order to be successful in his/her
career and be able to contribute to continued high level of safety for
air travelers and crew across the globe.
- Problem Solving and Decision Making (PDM)
Accurately identify risks and resolve problems. A professional pilot should use the appropriate decision-making processes.
- Situational Awareness (SAW)
Perceive
and comprehend all of the relevant information available and anticipate
what could happen that may affect the operation.
- Communication (COM)
A pilot should demonstrate effective oral, non-verbal and written communications, in normal and non-normal situations.
- Leadership and Teamwork (LTW)
Leadership
involves teamwork - and the quality of a leader depends on how
successful the leader is in building relationships with his team.
- Work Load Management (WLM)
Manages available resources efficiently to prioritize and perform tasks in a timely manner under all circumstances. The most important thing for a pilot to prepare for are the next two things.
- Application of Procedures (APP)
Identify
and apply procedures in accordance with published operating
instructions and applicable regulations, using the appropriate
knowledge.
- Aircraft Flight Path Management - Manual Control (FPM)
Control
the aircraft flight path through manual flight, including appropriate
use of flight management system(s) and flight guidance systems.
- Aircraft Flight Path Management – Automation (FPA)
Controls the aircraft flight path through automation, including appropriate use of flight management systems and guidance.
EBT vs traditional crew training
*pic source https://www.flightglobal.com/global-warning-honeywell-enhances-the-egpws/72753.article*
For decades, the content of
flight crew training programmes remained unchanged, according to
regulation. Training curricula included repetitive exposures to a set of
prescribed events, which, as technology evolved, became highly
improbable with modern aeroplanes. In addition, these events were mainly
examples of negative performance and we just expected crews to learn
effectively from them. In some cases, we learned what NOT to do but
rarely what could or should have been done to change the outcome of the
event. (You might also be interested in Safety II) This gives little help to the crew if faced with a similar or any
other challenge.
Training programmes were consequently saturated
with items that may not necessarily mitigate the real risks or enhance
safety in modern air transport operations.
*Pic source https://hackernoon.com/technical-vs-non-technical-marketers-lets-end-the-snobbery-w7v37k1*
Furthermore,
training approaches traditionally regarded non-technical skills (through
Crew Resource Management courses) and technical flying skills (during
simulator sessions) separately. Learning from past events, we have come
to realize that air incidents and accidents rarely result from the
improper use of a given skill alone, but rather involve a combination of
both technical and non-technical aspects.
The training concept shift proposed under EBT is not simply to
replace a sometimes-outdated set of critical events with a new set, but
rather to use the events as a vehicle for developing and assessing crew
performance across the range of behavioral competencies. In addition,
EBT requires instructors and trainers to focus on the root causes of
sub-standard behaviors, rather than merely asking a flight crew to
repeat a maneuver with no real understanding as to why it was not
successfully flown in the first instance.
It is very difficult, if not impossible, to foresee all plausible
accident scenarios in today’s aviation system, which characterized by
complexity and high reliability. EBT addresses this limitation by moving
from pure scenario-based training to prioritizing the development and
assessment of behavioral competencies, hence leading to improved
training outcomes. The aim is that by mastering a finite number of
defined competencies a pilot will be able to manage previously unseen
potentially dangerous situations in flight.
*Picture sourced from https://www.ediweekly.com/55414-2/*
Under the EBT training concept, qualified flight simulation
training devices (FSTDs) should be used to the maximum extent possible
for assessing and developing crew competence. Crews should be exposed to
a wide variety of situations that may be faced in line operations. In
today’s high-fidelity simulator environment sophisticated training tools
exist that are often not used effectively, as training regulatory
requirements are oriented more significantly toward checking.
EBT seeks
to redress the imbalance between training and checking as it recognizes
that an assessment of competence is necessary, but once completed,
pilots learn more effectively when being trained by competent
instructors to perform tasks and manage events measured according to a
given set of behavioral indicators, while not under pure test
conditions.
The development of a baseline EBT program requires the
determination by each air operator of critical training events based on
data, the development of training scenarios and the definition of
appropriate flight crew performance criteria when managing these events
and scenarios.
