Training Pilots For Resilience
Training Pilots For Resilience
Training Pilots For Resilience
Resilience
Resilience training is not a new concept in aviation. It was
introduced in mandatory Crew Resource Management (CRM)
training for pilots a few years ago. Resilience is built on a
pilot’s confidence and competencies. But what if they did not
fly for many weeks or months?
With many aircraft returning to service following the massive
fleet grounding our industry has faced as a result of the
COVID-19 crisis, it is a good time to highlight the importance
of resilience training.
Events like these may be considered as extreme startle events that a majority of
flight crews may never see in their flying careers. Some may believe that training
for resilience is only useful for such rare situations. Resilience is in fact useful
anytime an unexpected situation occurs. An unexpected situation is not
necessarily an extreme case such as the A300 example above. Resilience
training for flight crews will help them to overcome the startle effect and
temporary loss of situational awareness, to react in a controlled manner, and to
continue a safe flight.
What is resilience?
The term resilience has become widely used in recent years, and not only in
aviation. Resilience is used to qualify and evaluate human performance when
faced with unexpected disruptions in operation. EASA has defined flight crew
resilience as, “the ability of a flight crew member to recognize, absorb and adapt
to disruptions”.
Resilience training for pilots throughout the process of pilot selection, education,
training, and assessment has become an important element of flight safety.
A limitation of this approach is that each task must be taught and assessed. In
complex systems, or when jobs evolve rapidly, it may not be possible to teach
and assess every task. Some examples of the tasks to be performed in the
recurrent training and checking programs today are listed below:
For instance, EASA defines nine competencies (also used by Airbus) for flight
crew training:
● Application of knowledge
● Application of procedures and compliance with regulations
● Communication
● Flight Path Management - Automation
● Flight Path Management - Manual control
● Leadership and Teamwork
● Problem Solving and Decision making
● Situation awareness and management of information
● Workload management
Observable behaviors are associated with each defined competency and are
used for training and assessment purposes through a variety of scenarios. An
assessment of competence is of course necessary in CBTA, but when
completed, it provides the opportunity for pilots to learn most effectively when
they are not under test conditions.
The competency-based training approach has existed since the late 1950s. It has
been progressively deployed in the aviation industry since the 2000s with the
Multi-crew Pilot License (MPL) introduced in 2006, which was the first CBTA
program for licensing training. The first CBTA program for recurrent training was
introduced in 2013 with Evidence-Based Training (EBT).
In 2016, ICAO published Amendment 5 to ICAO Doc 9868 Procedures for Air
Navigation Services - Training (PANS-TRG), which introduced general provisions
for CBTA. The revision of ICAO Annex 1, published in 2020, recommends the
The latest PANS-TRG revision, published in 2020, further develops the CBTA
training method as an important tool to ensure safe operations. It requires pilots
to “demonstrate resilience when encountering an unexpected event”.
In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our industry, IATA
published the “Guidance for post-COVID Restart of Operations: CBTA Training
Solutions”. The objective of this document is to provide guidance on training
solutions to ensure a safe and efficient restart of operations after a long period of
inactivity.
Additionally, Airbus introduced the Airbus Pilot Relaunch Program (APRP). The
aim of the APRP is to enable flight crews of Airbus aircraft to do training to
reinforce operational fundamentals after a long period without flying. The content
of the training depends on the level of training requested by the Operator and on
the flight crew competencies to be reinforced.
This initiative relied on various data sources such as flight data analysis, air
safety reports, Line Observation Safety Audits (LOSA), which includes flight
observations, and more specifically threat and error management observations. It
also relied on training criticality surveys, which addressed the effectiveness of
training by highlighting the difference between the situations faced in line
operations and in training. These sources, along with other data, were collected
as evidence to evaluate the relevance of training depending on the generation of
commercial jet aircraft the pilot is flying.
The result of this analysis is the ICAO Doc 9995 Manual of Evidence-Based
Training (EBT) published in 2013. It focuses on a competency-based training
approach, giving more emphasis to non-technical skills and Crew Resource
Management (CRM) and depending on the generation of aircraft flown. More
information on the EBT concept can be found in the “Learning From the
Evidence” Safety first article, published in July 2014.
IATA published the Manual of EBT together with the EBT Implementation Guide,
which already highlighted the importance of developing resilience training. IATA
and ICAO were supported in their study with in-service data coming from aircraft
manufacturers including Airbus and from Operators. This data formed the EBT
Data Report, which allowed for a realistic evaluation of the relevance of the
training.
For more information about startle management, you can watch the video “The
Two Sides of Fear” available on Airbus Worldwide Instructor News (WIN)
website.
All Airbus Type Rating courses today offer multiple-choice scenarios, both
operational and technical that the instructor can select. Multiple-choice scenarios
provide the element of surprise to the flight crews and increase the variety of
unexpected scenarios they can encounter. This allows for the design of better
resilience training and assessment.
If the instructor considers that the facilitated debriefing is not sufficient to correct
the root-cause of the problem, they should recommend further training. It is
advisable to select a different exercise that requires the trainee to use the same
competencies to manage the situation.
Capt. Robert GRAEF Resilience relies on two pillars: competence and confidence. It is the
Head of Pedagogy and combination of a flight crew’s confidence to manage unexpected
Flight Operations
Standards - Customer situations and how they apply their competencies in such situations
Support that reflects their level of resilience. The goal of resilience training is
to enable the flight crew to recover performance as quickly as
With thanks to
Capt. Craig Hildebrandt possible after they experience the ‘startle effect’ caused by an
from Product Safety,
Thomas Gobeaut from
unexpected situation.
A300/A310 Flight
Operations Support, The preferred training methodology to strengthen a pilot’s level of
Capt. Christian Norden,
and Claire Pellegrin.
resilience is the CBTA approach. Instead of following the traditional
task-based approach, which requires checking a continuously
growing list of tasks, CBTA focuses on a limited number of
competencies applied to a variety of situations. The objective of CBTA
is to train pilots to manage any unforeseen situation during flight, and
therefore, to develop their resilience when faced with any unexpected
events.
Targeting a high level of resilience for pilots, but also for cabin crews,
air traffic controllers, maintenance personnel and all actors of the air
transport system is crucial to ensure an even higher level of safety
especially when facing unpredictable or unexpected situations.
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