Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pardon my French

I have had some really entertaining professors and teachers over the years. But none of them have come close to Don Talleur, my AVI 455 - Aviation Accident Investigation class instructor. He is the typical good-guy, Jim Carrey look-a-like dude.

In our previous class, this is what one of his explanations sounded like:

In accident investigation, you come across everything even remotely related to Human Factors. Some one or the other will eventually make a mistake. Sometimes increase in automation, decreases situation awareness (SA). I was once flying over lake Michigan, getting ready to turn over for my base leg towards the landing strip. The flight was on auto-pilot and I bent over to my right to grab the approach chart. When I come back up to my seat, I look out the window and the freaking plane's making a 20-degree left turn for God-only-knows what reason. I had no idea why the turn was being made, where I was headed or what I need to do to get back on track for the next 5 minutes. That's 300 seconds. Situation Awareness, you see.

As I said before, human errors are the major part of the pie in accidents. I know this investigator, who I had met over somewhere last month and he was investigating a particular incident. I asked him the reason for the accident, actually the probable cause. Was it mechanical failure? Or a design error? I didn't expect an informal answer from this gentleman, I barely knew him, but he went on and gave me a very frank reply. He said, and pardon my french here, "The guy fucked up, plain and simple".


I've just never heard an instructor say stuff like this before. The whole class was silent for about 40 seconds. We didn't even laugh. It was the truth, it was the plain truth said by him in a very frank manner.

2 comments:

Satish K Mantha said...

yeah! if god had not given us a planet that revolves around the sun, we may have had to do that ourselves to survive, or perish with no SA! :P

~The Dream Catcher~ said...

You would freak out in an Advertising Class. Not only do professors dressed in complete formal suits swear, even the students do. Not for the heck of it, but for the sake of emphasis. And it is accepted. It is a matter of the way you say it. Necessity.

When it is needed, and has to be put in the most non-superficial manner, I don't think it can be contested, argued, or complained about.

I do like this instructor of yours though.. sounds like a fun guy who flies planes that take random 20 degree left turns :)