pilot undertakes to ensure safety during a flight.
The crash of a Germanwings flight in the French Alps is a horrific incident that defies the expertise of aviation psychiatrists. The impact of the disaster and the loss of innocent lives was discussed at the PIA’s safety seminar. The incident was specially mentioned by Air Marshal Saleem Arshad, a former director general of the Civil Aviation Authority and the incumbent president of the Royal Aeronautical Society (Pakistan Chapter).
Dr Unaiza Niaz, who is a renowned aviation psychiatrist, further emphasised the importance of the sound mental health of air crew. Since she has a long experience with PIA in the practice of aviation medicine, her views quite comprehensively brought out the key aspects of aviation psychiatry with reference to maintaining flight safety standards. She stressed that since aviation psychiatry is a preventive aspect of medicine, she treated or prevented conditions to which aircrews were particularly susceptible. She termed the human factor as being critical to flight safety.
Flying by wire in today’s modern airplanes that have ‘glass’ cockpits is a great boon to pilots. However, to veteran aviators like Captain Johnny Sadiq, who is a renowned pilot and has also served as Flight Check Captain in PIA, flying on auto is not quite what aviation is all about. He is concerned about the fact that today’s planes are all auto and the pilots who fly these planes are so used to flying by wire that they cannot fly manually. Capt Sadiq says pilots need to be given proper training in manual flying so that they can deal with emergencies when autopilots (meaning on-board computers) fail and the safety of passengers is unnecessarily compromised.
The phenomenon, called Situation Awareness or SA, is an aspect of flying that worries many aviation psychiatrists. One such professional psychiatrist is Squadron Leader Naveed Sultan of the PAF Institute of Air Safety. Situation awareness involves aeronautical decision making (ADM). It is a systematic approach to the mental process used by airplane pilots to consistently determine the best course of action in response to a given set of circumstances. The importance of effective ADM skills cannot be overemphasised.
While progress is continually being made in the advancement of pilot training methods, aircraft equipment and systems, accidents do occur. It is therefore considered essential for pilots to have complete, accurate and up-to-the-minute situation awareness. Sultan feels that situation awareness needs to be recognised as a critical condition for successful decision-making across a broad range of systems in achieving flight safety.
Maintaining high standards of flight safety has helped save thousands of lives around the world through independent and expert safety guidance. Flight safety issues must be further highlighted and priorities set. This can be achieved by collecting data, sharing information and establishing communications.
What is needed is effectiveness in bridging cultural and political differences for the common cause of flight safety.