(PULSING MUSIC)
MAN: 'Aviate, navigate, and communicate.'
It's an old adage, but true.
Communication misunderstandings, failures, cost time, money,
and at worst, compromise safety.
TODD MICKLESON: Communication is a big focus.
It's quite often referred to as the glue
that keeps the other parts together, if you like.
So your decision-making,
your situation awareness,
your teamwork, all comes together through communication.
ADRIAN PARK: There is a famous quote that
the biggest problem with communication
is the assumption that it's happened.
TODD MICKLESON: So it's about understanding the queues
as to what message we're getting.
Not just the words that are being said, but the way they're being said,
the cadence, or how quickly it's being said, the pitch of the words.
GRAHAM EDKINS: Communication is an often-cited issue
in aviation accidents
where it's not enough communication,
misunderstanding of certain terms or phraseology.
Or too much.
PRESENTER: One of the worst aviation accidents in history
is where two 747s operated by KLM and Pan Am
collided and killed 583 people at Tenerife.
(CRASH AND EXPLOSION)
This accident brought human factors to the fore
and especially how we should communicate.
MELANIE TODD: After the event you found out
that people had information
that other people should have had.
Even that taught skill of doing the air law exam.
When do I call a Pan? When do I call a Mayday?
And yet we've seen in practice a few times
that people haven't done it when they should have.
When they would have got a high level of support from air-traffic control.
And so therefore the controller
is hamstrung in what they can actually do to help pilots in that situation
because they've just not wanted to speak up
or they have not wanted to draw attention to themselves.
They have not wanted to be
the person who has called a Pan or a Mayday when they didn't have to.
So what?
It's far better to have that outcome than to be the subject of an ATSB investigation.
JOHL BROWN: You need to be clear and concise
and your tone really needs to convey
whether it's an emergency or whether it's just a standard operation.
You just need to get your message across in as few words as possible.
Of course it needs to be clear enough that we understand what needs to be said
but the frequency is very contested
and only one person can talk at any one time
and the longer that somebody is talking, that means somebody else can't talk.
PETER JAMES: Good communication with the pilots
is basically about standardised procedures.
The pilots, once they're experienced,
they know what's coming,
they know what's going to happen at each stage of their flight.
They know what to expect from us and we know what to expect from them.
So it's all about standardised procedures,
whether it be departure procedures or arrival procedures,
standardised phraseology.
DAN PHILLIPS: My advice to a new pilot here at Bankstown is relax.
We're people on the other side as well
and we just want you to get to and from where you're going, safely.
The ground controller is talking to the tower controller
as they're moving aircraft to and from the runway.
The coordinator in the middle,
he is making sure aircraft coming in from Sydney to Bankstown
are acceptable to the controller, that he can actually separate what he already has.
And same again for departures.
And then there's a lot of communication between the two tower controllers as well
because it's a very small bit of sky.
They need to know what's going on both sides.
In the circuit, aircraft wanting to land,
they might want to land on the northern side.
We have to talk between ourselves to share the runway.
DOMINIQUE ESTIVAL: Aviation English is a different language,
a different dialect that you have to learn
and practise,
and that language that we use in aviation is codified and very strict.
Any changes, every time there is a change in the AIP,
there is a new little version of what should be said in a particular situation.
That's because people noticed that
ahh well, there was a situation that was not quite covered so we're adding something.
So it it's not to make things hard, it's actually to make things easier.
You need to practise the calls before you go out there and make them on the radio.
Possibly you need also to write down what ATC told you
so that you are able to make them good readback calls.
Videos that we have, I found that very useful
because you can actually hear the different calls
at the different location that you are going.
I had a student,
his older sister actually read the ATC calls,
and he would make his readbacks in answering to her and he learnt very quickly.
I think there is a training facility
where they have the students riding their pushbikes around the hangar
and somebody playing the role of the air traffic controller,
with a megaphone,
and the students riding around on their pushbikes making their calls.
That's a great idea because it actually
simulates very well what happens when you're flying,
that you have to do something.
You have to move and keep your balance and make the call at the same time.
And think about what you're going to say at the same time as you do something.
The accents and the pronunciation errors that people will make
will depend on their original language.
So Aviation English,
the ICAO pronunciation to some extent tries to mitigate that.
So for instance you're not supposed to say 'thousand', you say 'tou sand'.
You're not supposed to just say 'three'. You are supposed to say 'tree'.
And that's because in many languages like mine, in French,
we don't make the distinction between 'th' and 'se'.
And that's another reason why it's important for pilots to stick to it.
It sounds strange, especially on the recording, on the video probably,
but over the telephone you will notice that some frequencies get removed
and it's even worse on the radio.
So that the difference between nine and five,
also the V and the N is gone when you're over the radio.
And therefore in order to distinguish between 'nine' and 'five',
you really have to say 'niner' and 'fife',
otherwise they will sound the same.
It's important to keep to the phraseology, to keep to Aviation English
and not use slang or terms that would be too conversational
and that other people might not understand.
The principle of being concise, precise and clear,
and speaking slowly enough that you can be understood, should always prevail.
JOHL BROWN: It's a set phraseology that's played out.
Trying to stick to that as much as possible.
And if you do need to deviate from that then try and still keep it simple and clear.
Even if it's from an English speaker to an English speaker,
there will be foreign carriers on the frequency as well
and they will need to understand what's being said as well.
GRAHAM EDKINS: Communication is not one-way,
it's got to come back.
So the important issues around readback and callback are really important.
Those fundamental principles
that really form part of most human factors training courses
is understanding limitations of communication
and then understanding how communication is a two-way process.
BEN COOK: You want to get the basics right.
So at the end of the day
your first thing is to manage your personalities.
We saw that in Airtime.
We saw Barry the chief pilot
provide an opportunity to a couple of the crew to say, "Hey, is everything OK?
"Is everything OK? Are you managing OK with that personality type,
"as in John, the slightly cranky Captain?"
So if you can manage your personalities and you can get that right,
then you can actually do some formal training
to enhance your ability to communicate.
ADRIAN PARK: Yeah look, it's very important to tailor communication
to the respective work groups.
So engineers have a language of their own. Pilots have a language of their own.
Administrative, Op Support have a language of their own.
Even our FEs, our flight examiners, they tend to have their own language.
PAUL KERNICK: It is very easy in a diverse workforce
that we have
that you can have splinter groups.
It's very easy for a medical team to stay with the medical team
and aviation team to stay with the aviation team.
But it's essential that you build that communication
because at the end of the day you're one unit within an airframe.
So if you don't have that on base
you're not going to have it in your airframes.
LOUISE KIRKWOOD: With the size of the organisation,
it can be quite difficult to bring
all the different people that touch the aircraft
into the same room at the same time.
I think that would be the ultimate if you could
because then you could have the engineering talking to the flight crew,
talking to the cabin crew, talking to the load controller, to the caterer.
All that array.
So what we do where able,
is very much to get the key people in the room.
So whether that may be a pilot that's going as a first officer to command
to have some contact with a CSM,
or the CSM to hear from the captains what their views are.
Definitely we try to work to that level.
If we can't do that, then we build a lot of scenarios into the training
so that people can kind of get an idea based on past events or past reports,
what are the key challenges we're having in the environment.
So we do a lot of risk based analysis
and then whatever those highest risks have been within the last 12 months,
we'll build those scenarios into the training.
TIM FRANKEL: We have a number of tools
that we use to communicate with our guys,
so I think we're enabled fairly well.
Obviously the standard email stuff,
but we have a good system of providing alerts to our staff
to make sure they're staying aware of all the operation issues
that need to be passed on.
That open reporting culture,
I think that translates into good communication on all issues.
So I think our crews communicate exceptionally with themselves.
On a day-to-day basis we have formal processes
for ensuring essential operational information is passed on between crew.
So when a day shift is finished
and the day shift is handing over to the night shift,
there's always a formal brief
to ensure that all the correct information is handed over to the oncoming crew.
We overlay detailed shift briefings that make sure we cover the crewing,
recencies, qualification issues, aircraft issues, any operational issues.
There are restrictions with hospitals.
They're briefed ad nauseam every day.
We go back through, we cover all our safety issues on a daily basis
with our crews as well.
We focus a lot on our non-technical skills through our training cycles
and that's how we really reinforce crew communication,
not only between the pilot and the crewmen,
but also between the flying crew and the medical team in the back.
So aside from having very good people
I think we've enabled them with good systems.
ANDREA ROBERTS: I've put together a forum of safety managers,
involving every operator,
whether it's a private G8 pilot,
whether it's a helicopter pilot,
or whether it is a flight training organisation.
We've involved ATC now and Council
to make sure that everything around the airport,
where our students are walking,
flying,
exposed to a very unsafe environment,
that we can improve that together.
The basic principle of that forum is instead of whingeing,
to discuss, find solutions, and actually get them in place.
RICK SELLERS: A very big part of communication's
a significant module
in the first knowledge base that we give all our crews.
We go through and discuss,
what are the issues to do with communication?
How can we communicate clearly?
And also give them some tools and processes to use.
So we actually train everybody.
Everybody in the entire organisation has a standardised set of responses.
TODD MICKLESON: As a captain I always encourage input from my co-pilot
or first officer.
Don't be afraid to speak up if you've seen anything.
In fact I'll get cranky if you don't speak up,
rather than getting cranky at you because you did speak up.
So you've got to create that right environment
for people to actually speak up and pass on that information.
RICK SELLERS: What we also need to do though
is empower the crew to feel comfortable to speak up.
Part of our program when we're giving the training to our individuals
is we actually provide them with tools to do that.
And we reinforce it with some examples,
some really good examples of where people - these are positive examples
rather than showing, "Oh, something crashed, what could we have done better?"
We use some examples where an accident was avoided due to people speaking up.
So it was a positive outcome.
There is also pretty much a general rule, 'It only takes one person to say, "No".'
TODD MICKLESON: So it's about opening up that communication
and allowing people to give you the information that you need.
So the number one thing I'd say is briefing.
Very important.
Even in a single pilot operation, brief yourself. Have a plan.
If you've got regular passengers that are travelling with you,
there's an opportunity there for a single pilot
to actually use those extra eyes and ears as an added safety margin.
There's nothing wrong with the pilot turning around to the passengers
and saying, "OK, if you see wildlife, kangaroos, things like that, speak up."
PETER GASH: Modern communication is interesting.
It's texting. And it's emailing.
And we're getting used to some of that
because we've now got a WhatsApp
and I'll make a little text and it goes to all my pilots on the WhatsApp.
And they all reply. And it's like, wow, how good is that?
I've just spoken to 12 or 14 people, quickly.
It's a good method.
But nothing beats eye to eye.
Sitting there heart to heart, and having a chat.
Sitting in the cockpit with a young person and saying, "Hey, I'm coming today.
"The weather is a bit ordinary. I haven't seen how you're going for a while.
"I'll jump in. We'll call this a Line Check, we'll see how you're doing."
And if you teach that person one thing on that flight
but you get a whole bunch of communication -
you're hearing about his mum, his dad,
his dog, the missus, the husband.
Whatever.
You're just learning about each other. You're communicating.
And that opens the pathway
to having those discussions that aren't always so easy to have.
Because there are times when you've got to point out to somebody
that, "Hey, you're great here and here, but we need to polish this bit."
It's easier done if you've got a rapport.
It's easier done if you have got a good pathway of communication.
WEBLEY HIRT: Whenever we interact
and we work with people
we need to be very mindful of their emotions
and our relationships with them.
So any opportunity we get,
we should always try and make a deposit into their bank account.
And that can be something as simple as referring to them by their first name,
asking them how their football team went on the weekend.
Every time you do that you make a deposit into their bank account
and strengthen the relationship.
Because one day there is going to be something that comes up
that is going to require you as a manager
to maybe bring them into the office and have a chat.
And ultimately that leads to a withdrawal from the bank account.
You've just got to hope that as a manager
over time you've put enough deposits into the bank account
so that when you do have to bring them in and have that fairly hard conversation,
they walk out of the office and say, "Well, that manager really cares for me.
"He thinks a lot about me because he always asks me how I'm going.
"Today he pulled me in which must mean I've done something wrong."
And when that happens,
you still end up in a situation where the employee still has respect for you
and takes the conversation really well.
If over time you've never made the deposits into the bank account,
then that employee or student is going to walk out and essentially not respect you.
So in essence what you want to ensure
is that after a withdrawal, their bank account is still in credit.
If you go one step further than that,
by always investing in your staff or your students,
strengthening those relationships,
like any bank account it accrues interest.
So what you invariably find
is that your staff members whom you have invested in heavily
will go the extra mile for you.
DOMINIQUE ESTIVAL: And of course always remember the old adage,
'Aviate, navigate, communicate.'
Communicate comes after flying the aircraft
and knowing where you are
and knowing where you're going.
That's really important.