New programs that actually work - CRM ORM Corner - crew resource management - operational risk management

Approach, March, 2003 by Steve Ray

I somewhat resist change, and I cringe when an old program claims to be new and improved, simply by taking on a new name or acronym. Even worse is when a new policy or leadership style is thrust upon me for my own good. These days in the Navy, inspections are called visits, personnel are called customers, and, in my civilian job, the checkride now is called a validation.

It all sounds inoffensive and sensitive, but, if you've been around awhile and seen some of these new and improved products and policies come and go, you become jaded about how great this new stuff really is.

My photo finally has made its way to the top row of the roster board, and I reluctantly have become one of the old guys in my reserve squadron. I've had the opportunity over the last 14 years to experience most of the positive, as well as negative, changes to the way we do business in naval aviation. There are a couple of new programs I hope don't go the way of our experiments with smart per diem and the ever-popular TQL.

Crew resource management, or CRM, formerly known as aircrew coordination training (ACT), is a dynamic program that probably has paid for itself a million times over. The other program is operational risk management (ORM). I don't want to turn this article into a book report on the seven critical skills (SAD CLAM) of CRM, or the principles and steps of ORM. But, I would like to relate a couple of incidents where ORM and CRM were applied and worked as advertised.

The first incident took place the first day of a recent detachment to the Arabian Gulf. We were scheduled for a quickie, in-and-out, afternoon evolution that turned into a five-leg mission, and terminated at 0500 the following morning. The crew just had arrived in-theater from CONUS, a difference of eight time zones; we were not exactly well rested. Leg four was a planned stop in Fujairah, UAE, at 0200. We would pick up a load that was going to put us above 145,000 pounds takeoff weight: heavy, but not unusually so for a C-130.

If you ever have been into Fuj, you know almost all landings are to the west, and all takeoffs are to the east--to avoid the mountains on the western edge of the field. There are no SIDs or approaches over the mountains, and all missed-approach procedures take the aircraft well to the north or south of the field before crossing the eastern threshold of runway 29. I previously had taken off from Fuj to the west in daytime VMC conditions. This departure requires an immediate 180-degree turn toward the sea, and I had flown it with relative comfort because the mountains were easily visible, but I never had done it at night.

We were about to start our descent when we picked up ATIS for Fuj, and we learned the winds were out of the west at 25 knots, with gusts to 33. I briefed the approach and the possible waveoff procedures in case of windshear. Since we would be taking off to the west, into the mountains, the flight engineer asked what kind of three-engine-climb performance we would need. The truth was I hadn't thought of it at all. We quickly consulted our performance manual and determined that taking off to the west and losing an engine at 145,000 pounds was doable on paper.

However, after a crew discussion on this take-off issue and employment of ORM, I determined it wasn't worth the risk. In this case, there was no way the benefits outweighed the costs--the risk was unnecessary. Was I good enough to take off at a high gross weight, lose an engine, avoid the unseen mountains within a mile and a half of the field while on instruments? Could I get the engine properly shut down, climb-out over the ocean, and then bring us back to Fuj for an uneventful three-engine landing at night, on minimal sleep after a long day? I don't ever want to find out. Thanks to an AD2 flight engineer who exhibited sound situational awareness, I won't have to.

We skipped the fourth stop of our journey and headed back to base. The pallet of mail, or bug juice, or whatever it was, made it safely to its destination in the bright, southwest Asian sun the next day.

On another detachment, this time in the Med during August, we had the misfortune of breaking a hydraulic line in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The line was made of aluminum, and it would take four days to order and receive a new one from CONUS. The squadron, or at least the OinC, was not happy. Broken down in Palma? In summer? Something smelled fishy, at least to those on the other end of the phone line.

While discussing our options, my ADC flight engineer had an idea. Maybe we could get the hydraulics section aboard one of the Navy ships in port to make a rubber line we could use to bypass the broken section. Then we could fly our aircraft back to Sigonella, where it would be down, awaking the proper aluminum part. He showed me the diagrams, and his plan sounded like it would work.

The flight engineer, standing by his creative and mechanical abilities, suggested we immediately go to the ship, get the part made and test it. If it looked good, we would press on and fly the plane back to Sig. Another go-getter crew member agreed, arguing it is better to have a down plane in Sig, "where, at least, it's home," than at an outlying field.