How far will you follow SOPs?

[Beefitarian]

I'm wondering how powerfull these rules are. There are only two options because sometimes that's all you get in an airplane. In the scenario you know full well something's going to get bent because of a company rule and you know you have to break it to prevent that.

[Youngback]

I might word the question differently. If anyone says they would crash, I'd be interested in knowing which airline they fly for.

Beef, I'm not sure if you've ever seen SOP's or not. They are designed to prevent crashes by providing a linear flow of procedures for standard situations. They don't account for every eventuality though. That is where the trouble usually happens.

[Beefitarian]

That is where the trouble usually happens.

That's kind of what I'm wondering though. It sounds like people would let a fire get going while looking for the checklist that started it instead of spraying it with a fire extinguiser because they're afraid of getting in trouble. I might even have been one if I had finished CPL.

[Youngback]

An unlikely scenario. Part of SOP's are emergency procedures that have to be committed to memory. If we have a fire on board, both crew members have actions that have to be taken immediately. If we looked for a checklist, that would be violating the SOP's. What would be non standard is if somehow our fire extinguisher caught fire. A non-SOP action might be smothering the fire with the F/O

[Beefitarian]

Well the idea here is everyone but you can click whatever they want and not be identified for their choice. Are people more afraid of wrecking a plane or losing their job?

[short bus]

this is a ridiculous question and scenario.

[sanjet]

Can't really legitimize this poll. Every situation will obviously be different, some a straightforward following of SOP will solve, while others, past pilot experience kicks in.

[Sidebar]

In my experience, crashes are more frequently linked to those who did not follow the SOPs.

[CID]

You shouldn't fly with the attitude that you will bypass the SOPs if need be or just forget it all in place of "common sense". SOPs are put together with a great deal of care and forethought that pilots sometimes can't comprehend at the time.

But....there are always exceptions. In the face of overwhelming reasons to put the SOPs aside, it may be the best choice. A great example is the recent RTO in Winnipeg by a Perimeter crew in a Dash 8. On rotation they got a stall warning and a stick pusher. Instead of following SOPs and continuing the takeoff beyond rotation, the settled back down on the runway.

In this case, they had more than enough runway (about 7000 feet from what I understand) to settle back and come to a stop. I think it was a good decision and the incident should come under review with their flight department to determine if changes to the SOPs should be made.

[Flybabe]

Not too sure the poll is really realistic??

[Rockie]

Actually the poll is realistic for some who are having the worst day of their possibly shortened lives. SwissAir is the perfect example. Bending or crashing an airplane is never justified by the "I was just following SOP's" defence because it puts both your life and that of your passengers at risk. Any company that would fire you under those circumstances should not be in business and you're better off not being there.

But make no mistake, there are not enough good things to say about a good set of SOP's. Under normal circumstances they allow you to walk into an airplane, shake hands with your partner whom you've never met before and seamlessly have the airplane ready to go within minutes. They let everybody from operations to ground crew to cabin crew to ATC know what to expect in order to get the job done safely. There is also the fact that you are getting paid to fly somebody else's airplane the way they want it flown. You wanted to be a professional pilot...

In abnormal circumstances they permit the crew to deal with a sick airplane in the way the manufacturer intended. QRH, EICAS and ECAM discipline are critical for properly dealing with the fault and configuring the aircraft for a safe recovery. Abnormal handling SOP's properly followed ensure somebody is always minding the store as far as flying and ATC is concerned, and keep everybody onboard the aircraft informed as to what's going on and what to expect.

But of course no set of SOP's can accommodate every circumstance and that's where your human ability to think outside the lines becomes an essential ingredient of the job. If it's a normal circumstance not specifically covered then do something safe and consistent with the operating philosophy of the SOP's. Same with something abnormal but non-life threatening that isn't covered.

In dire, time critical circumstances where you face imminent death you do whatever you need to do to get the thing on the ground RFN and hopefully walk away from it. SOP's and abnormal procedures can help you do that but you don't delay landing in order to accomplish them in those circumstances. Again, SwissAir is a perfect example.

Another excellent illustration of that principle is the Hudson River ditching. The time to landing was obviously out of the crew's hands, but the Captain flew the airplane the whole time while the FO accomplished as much of the ECAM procedures to relight an engine as he could in the time allowed. Had he had sufficient time he would have gotten to the QRH ditching procedure and activated the ditching switch which would have closed the outflow valve and allowed the airplane to float a little longer. But in the end it didn't matter because everybody got out.

Success.

[noflex]

It is SOP to deviate from SOP's, if it is deemed a safer option.

[Beefitarian]

I agree with noflex.

I think in most cases you'd have allready broken the rule if you truely believe you needed to. It's like flinching, you can't really think it out if self preservation kicks in. Conversly I might crash following a rule. Yes the rule is close to allways the best course of action, that's why it became the rule. It might be too late to break the rule by the time I realise, I should have done "fill in the blank" ~crunch~ Oh darn. You've done something you wish you didn't looking back.

this is a ridiculous question and scenario.

So is, "Can I have some of that?" yet people ask that all the time. How would the other person know what my capabilities regarding having some of that are?

One of the points of this thread was to help us stop for a second and remember a sentance or even a word in it, can mean too many things, some of them will be something that was not meant by the person that wrote it.

I intentionally did not define the crash. Did the plane make a physical contact causing a scratch that no one will ever be able to trace back to the real cause because it looks the same as the one from someone's zipper pull on a jacket. Or was the plane and contents vapourized? Crash might be either or anything between. Obviosly that's going to factor into a real life decision. I'm pretty sure allmost everyone's going to follow the rule if the "crash" is trivial enough, yet most said they wouldn't. Maybe you completely disagree with said rule knowing this one really unlikely trivial thing could happen. Who knows, we might intentionally dent the plane just to prove we were right. That's one way to get the, "Unless..." added in.

Someone I knew was using "We live in an imperfect world." as his catch phrase for a while.

I knew a guy that had driven race cars for a while. He used to say, "When we're practicing forced approaches I tell flight instructors, I've been in lots of controlled high speed crashes. If I lose the engine I'm just going to be in another one." I don't even disagree with what he was saying there. Still one day when he was telling that story again, I decided to mention, "You know, these cessnas don't have a roll cage? If it hits something solid at the wrong angle it's probably going to fold like an aluminum can."

Have fun everyone.

[Expat]

Dumping fuel when you are on fire, to avoid landing heavy, and breaking the undercarriage, comes to mind.

[justwork]

What happens when you knowingly violate the SOP's in an effort to help save the hull, and end up crash anyway? Remember you're not . Yeager. Hope you don't have any assets or money, cause you're about to lose it all. Or maybe you just widowed your wife, who will now get to lose it all on top of losing you.

My thoughts - follow the SOP's. If you know there is an issue with a particular SOP that could lead to your demise YOU have the responsibility to bring that up with your chief pilot and trainers to get it rectified before there is an accident.

In my opinion the biggest danger in deviating from a split second SOP is that the guy beside you now becomes completely useless, you might as well go grab the person sitting in row 1 to come take their place. Or even worse, they might think you're following SOP, and they start doing what is expected of them, which may completely screw you. Like in a rejected take off, say you decided to deviate from SOP and continue prior to V1 (for what ever reason you had in your head) and guy in the other seat jumps on the brakes while you still have take off power set. Now you don't have enough runway to take off or to stop...

Unless you have time to discuss why you're deviating from SOP, both can agree on it, and are absolutely %100 certain that you must - do yourself a favor and stick to the original plan. Now a split second decision to deviate from SOP in a 2 crew environment will most certainly lead to a smoking divot.

[KK7]

"Following SOPs until you crash" is in itself a violation of the SOPs. There is a CARs mandated section of the SOPs called the "Preamble" that describes what purpose the SOPs serve. In it, it should state that the SOPs cannot serve every situation, and the SOPs do not replace best judgement and experience.

My interpretation of this is that the SOPs should be followed, unless you have a good reason to do otherwise. If the latter is the case, it says right in the SOPs that you are free to do so.

Read the preamble in your company's SOPs and let us know what it says.

[True North]

It's pretty simple really. SOPs are "standard" operating procedures and cover day to day ops. Under normal circumstances there should never be a reason to deviate from them. SOPs also cover foreseeable non-normal and emergency procedures and like justwork said, if you decide to deviate from SOP during an emergency because you think you know better, you best get it right because you just stuck your head in the noose. In the end you always have the captain's emergency authority to do whatever you think you need to so you can get your machine safely on the ground. I don't know much about smaller aircraft but Boeing and Airbus procedures are pretty comprehensive and I never encountered a situation in 35 years that wasn't well covered by the SOP. It sounds like Beefitarian is looking for an excuse not to follow SOP. Give us an example of a situation where you feel it would be warranted.

[Flybabe]

Unless you have time to discuss why you're deviating from SOP, both can agree on it, and are absolutely %100 certain that you must - do yourself a favor and stick to the original plan. Now a split second decision to deviate from SOP in a 2 crew environment will most certainly lead to a smoking divot.

Now THIS I find realistic. True North - great post.

Anyone can look back on, or postulate on their responses to, a particular situation. Follow your SOPs but remember that deviations from SOP MUST be briefed. YOU are responsible for the aircraft and lives of those on board. And, in two crew, that means BOTH crew members.

I lost several friends in the tanker business due to deviation from SOP. In the two most recent incidents, they became "smoking divots". I doubt any of them became such intentionally.

[Beefitarian]

justwork, the blame game is a whole other layer. You could have done everything 100% by SOP it nearly worked was the absolute best course of action and something still took you out. They might blame you regardless. When it comes to the courts it doesn't matter what happened if they can prove it was your fault then that's the verdict.

To some extent I need to understand, interpret and apply any given written thing. Maybe I thought I was following an SOP but wasn't because I read it wrong.

[Justjohn]

What a ridiculously biased question. Right up there with Are you still beating your Wife ?

[Beefitarian]

Are you still beating your Wife ?

No.

[justwork]

justwork, the blame game is a whole other layer. You could have done everything 100% by SOP it nearly worked was the absolute best course of action and something still took you out. They might blame you regardless. When it comes to the courts it doesn't matter what happened if they can prove it was your fault then that's the verdict.

To some extent I need to understand, interpret and apply any given written thing. Maybe I thought I was following an SOP but wasn't because I read it wrong.

Unless it was a clear manufacture defect, or sever maintenance issue, the PIC will always be found responsible. Read the rest of my original post, just the first paragraph was "blame game".

[Colonel Sanders]

Unless it was a clear manufacture defect ... the PIC will always be found responsible

Even when it's clearly a design flaw, the PIC can still get roasted. Ask the LHR double-flameout BA777 pilot, who went through hell and back again, until it was grudgingly admitted years later that the 777 had a design flaw in the fuel heater - it plugged up when a chunk of ice came free in the lines.

[Stallspin]

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[CpnCrunch]

But....there are always exceptions. In the face of overwhelming reasons to put the SOPs aside, it may be the best choice. A great example is the recent RTO in Winnipeg by a Perimeter crew in a Dash 8. On rotation they got a stall warning and a stick pusher. Instead of following SOPs and continuing the takeoff beyond rotation, the settled back down on the runway.

What is this SOP? There have been quite a few very bad accidents caused by pilots forgetting to lower the flaps for takeoff. Surely it is common sense that you can't force a plane to fly if it isn't ready to, and if you get a stall warning on takeoff that is either a pretty big clue that the plane isn't ready to fly (or it might be a faulty stall warning, but I suspect that would be unusual).