Resilience in aviation - remaining capable of action

The future of mobility is not only green, connected and dominated by public transport, but above all resilient. The experience of the Covid 19 pandemic and other shock events have shown how vulnerable the mobility system can be. For decades, the aviation industry has worked extensively on technical resilience and the interaction between people and machines. Sandra Linder, a flight safety officer and professional pilot for 15 years, talks about resilience in aviation and why people make the difference.

Sandra, where do you encounter the term resilience in the aviation industry?

Sandra Linder: The term has been used in aviation for a long time because we are a so-called high-risk industry, similar to medicine . In addition, the Corona issue has fueled it all over again. In our industry, it is enormously important to be able to deal with the unexpected - to remain resilient. We have to deal with this issue well, especially in the cockpits, and remain capable of acting in certain situations, where the risk and the financial damage would be enormous. In doing so, we have to deal with the following questions: How can we recognize the unpredictable and remain capable of acting? What can we learn from previous situations?

When working with automated systems, there is the interface between man and machine. There, too, unforeseen events can always occur, right?

Sandra Linder: Absolutely. It's our daily work to deal with the machine and at the same time to work together in a team to operate the machine as well as possible with two or even sometimes three people. And this is a very complex machine, especially when the standard case no longer prevails, but when fault failures or engine failures occur. The machines, like our computers, have evolved over the years and are designed with redundancy in mind. There are various methods for achieving the greatest redundancy or resilience. But also we humans in the cockpit have made an enormous development in the last 40, 50, 60 years in aviation.

In what way has the job of pilots changed over the decades?

Sandra Linder: From the technical side, you can say that there are different methods how our systems are designed. In the aircraft production of new models, we are now learning from previous mistakes. For example, systems are strictly separated, such as the on-board electronics, which are divided into cabin and cockpit. Although you could use the electronics in the same way, it has turned out to be just too vulnerable, also with regard to cyber attacks .
In addition, we are working with autopilots. We have two systems that complement each other. One takes over immediately when the other can't. When it comes to navigation or positioning, for example, we even have three systems that work independently of each other and that synchronize with each other. Each of the three systems calculates a position where we think we are. As soon as the system or our airplane determines, one of the three positions is faulty, then this is excluded.
What one can always say, however, is that the human being is the last instance. The pilot in the cockpit gets all the information at a glance. His job is to make the best of all the systems as they function at that moment and also to keep the upper hand and thus control. Of course, we as pilots have always evolved as well.
We come from a military history where pilots were the heroes of aviation, mostly lone wolves. Initially, there was only ever one pilot in military aircraft, so other qualities were needed. And dealing with mistakes was quite different than later. When it came to the two-man or three-man cockpits, people tried to avoid mistakes as much as possible in the beginning. It was said that a pilot had to be so well trained that he would not make any mistakes. They tried that for a while and found that it didn't work.
The machines got better and better over time, but there were still - especially in the 1970s - serious accidents. And eventually it was decided to look more closely and address human error in the cockpit. We can't always avoid mistakes, but we can't sweep them under the carpet either; we have to learn to deal with them in the best possible way. It was a tremendous journey that we took in the early 1980s.

So a lived error culture is important to make the system more resilient. What else is behind it?

Sandra Linder: As always, a side aspect plays the money: we live in a time where we are subject to enormous financial constraints, which is a very big challenge for redundancy or even learning. It is difficult to allocate funds for something that might happen at some point. This is where persuasion is needed.
What is elementary from my perspective, based on my years of experience, is to put people first. In the end, it doesn't matter how the systems develop, because people make the difference, they are the focus and the ones who have to act. Meanwhile, the transformation has moved in the direction of seeing people as opportunities in the cockpit. It is important to ask ourselves what can we learn from incidents, accidents and mistakes in our industry in order to prepare people in advance in the best possible way.
At some point, people started to analyze the work in the cockpit and asked themselves:

• What do we have to pay attention to there?
• How does communication work?
• What is needed for this?
• How is a message created?
• How do we make decisions?

In addition, it is important to think about hierarchies. We had a weird hierarchy in aviation. The captains had been on a high pedestal and often the co-pilots had not dared to address certain things. That was very much illuminated, and ultimately it was even made a legal requirement that every pilot go through training every year.

If you apply this experience to a resilient transport system, would you also have to think from the perspective of those who use an e-scooter, an automated cab shuttle, etc., to reduce accidents, for example?

Sandra Linder: Yes, this is a key factor in my eyes. I am not an expert in the field of autonomous driving. I count more to the users and observers. But I honestly marvel at the fact that an inexperienced driver who knows very little about his autopilot system is ultimately alone with it and thus represents the last resort from my pilot perspective.
From my point of view, training, and/or a sound knowledge of a system is essential in order to deal with such things. There is always the second competence besides the technical one. That is the human being, who should keep an overview and of course also needs certain skills in dealing with these new and complex technologies.

Can you elaborate on how I can deal with uncertain things?

Sandra Linder: There are two topics that we have included in our education and training - especially in simulator training. For example, we trained engine failures or landings with a lot of wind. These were events that we had already experienced. Then we realized that we were well prepared for these cases. But what about situations that we can't imagine and that have never been practiced? As a result, we took the approach of developing certain competencies and behaviors. So we really thought about, what does a pilot need to recognize things and remain capable of acting? To do that, we developed core competencies and checklists so that basic things are always mastered.
But at the same time, we also need to strengthen team skills. We need to have pilots reflect on their behavior, they need to become aware of their behaviors. This even goes as far as giving feedback in our training, for example: You tend not to let your colleague speak out, or you tend not to listen more. In doing so, we get our own behavior reflected back to us, and so this creates development opportunities for: Workload management, communication, team decision making. But a central point for me in the topic of how we deal with uncertainty is also the human being itself, i.e. the pilot. In addition to all the skills I just mentioned, the pilot needs confidence in himself. In addition to good training and targeted honest training, a positive error culture is important, which allows to fail, to make mistakes and to function transparently, honestly as well as openly. The point is never to find out who is to blame or who is right. We are only interested in correcting the mistake and avoiding it in the future if possible.
If we then have the psychological security of not being punished for mistakes that occur and everyone supports each other, then it is possible to work together as a team. If the culture is lived from the manager down to each employee, unforeseen events can also be mastered in the team.

The interview was conducted by David Gordon, Project Manager Technology I ZD.B-Theme Platform Connected Mobility at Bayern Innovativ GmbH.