A CAE instructor’s take: leveraging the past to improve CRM skills

By Capt. Jaykumar Jacob Henry

Crew Resource Management has been a risk management strategy for over 30 years. While CRM is primarily a team-based concept, how can pilots develop the non-technical skills related to its practice in a context of confinement and limited human contact?

Trainees and commercial pilots can take the lead and learn more about CRM with resources available to all, in the comfort of their own home. In aviation, as in many industries, knowledge is often obtained by learning from the past. An excellent way to develop and refresh CRM non-technical skills is to read from the ICAO e-library of investigated accidents and incidents. It is composed of reports from over 2000 occurrences, each providing a full analysis of the event and safety recommendations. Users can browse by location, date and aircraft type, which makes it easier to find events they can relate to. 

Hindsight is easy, but try to put yourself in the crew’s shoes and imagine how you would have reacted and managed the event if confronted by the same situation. Safety recommendations from these reports can also provide valuable insight into how failures happen, but most importantly, provide solutions to resolve them. 

Make sure that you join various pilot chat platforms to interact positively with colleagues while sharing your own CRM experiences. The more we know makes us better at mitigating risks and provides a safer operational environment for all.