The statistics suggest that distraction is a contributing cause to over half of all aviation accidents. So , as an industry, we clearly need to try to improve our performance.

 

An important skill for pilots is self discipline, and this is the skill that needs to come to the fore in avoiding distraction. Many airline’s procedures enforce a ‘sterile cockpit’, whereby all extraneous conversation is banned during busy phases of flight. Typical rules are ‘sterile’ below 10,000′, or ‘sterile’ in all climbs and descents. When I review distraction based incidents that I have been involved in, the vast majority would not have happened if, on that day, I had been fully adhering to the sterile cockpit rule as well as I normally aim to do.

 

The lesson is clear – do not cause distraction by breaking the sterile cockpit rule, and do not join in when others risk distraction by breaking the sterile cockpit rule.

 

Of course distraction isn’t only self-induced. When a warning system message occurs, it is inevitable that all the crew will be drawn to the message, whether it be a remote warning, or on ECAM/EICAS. Once again though, we need to train ourselves to have the self discipline to react correctly. The Pilot Flying (PF) either has to steel them self to resist the temptation to get involved or, if workload is low, only have a quick look in order to gather some independent information. PFs task is to aviate – fly the plane. If you want to get more involved with working the problem, then you can always hand control of the flying to the other pilot. Don’t get too carried away though, if you change roles too often it just adds to the distraction risk.

 

This is why judgement and self discipline are such crucial pilot skills. If PF gets involved too much with identifying and analysing the problem, then distraction sets in and errors and accidents occur. However, if PF sticks rigidly to pure ‘aviation’, in a dogmatic and simplistic way, then opportunities to monitor the other pilot are missed. Monitoring is a two way street.

 

So, avoid distraction and you are well on the way to avoiding becoming another incident/accident statistic. At the same time, don’t be a distraction dogmatist – use your judgement to decide how much you need to be involved in monitoring the other pilot and the systems. Use your judgement wisely, and you will be part of a highly effective crew. Use it poorly, and you reduce the effectiveness of the crew.