[ad_1]
At Fireside Partners, our Flight Monitoring team follows a 5-tier classification model for triaging and responding to parameter exceedance events. In this model, the two highest classification tiers are dubbed “emergency response plan-activating events” (ERP-activating events) and “critical events,” respectively.
Our team classifies events as “ERP-activating” if they have caused our client to activate their ERP for any reason or if, in our judgement, they should cause our client to activate their ERP due to clear and present damage to life, limb, property or reputation. Thankfully, these events are relatively rare, occurring less than .001 times per 100,000 flights we monitor.
On the other hand, situations warranting classification as “critical events” are much more common, appearing three times per week on average within our monitored fleet. Critical events, by our model, are situations where damage to life, limb, property or reputation is likely but has not yet occurred, or damage has occurred but it is minor and does not warrant full ERP activation.
Due to their higher prevalence versus ERP-activating events, we propose that critical events pose a powerful opportunity for organizations to practice and refine their emergency response procedures. Further, we feel that given their strong potential to escalate into ERP-activating situations, organizations should by default, “over-respond” to critical events out of an abundance of caution.
The Reasoning for “Over-Responding”
As part of this practice of “over-responding,” we suggest that flight crews should err on the side of declaring an emergency with ATC whenever they encounter a critical event. While their specific classification terminology differs from ours, we believe that the ICAO, in its Annex 10 Volume II, and the FAA, in Joint Order (JO) 7110.65, offer clear guidance on this topic by directing a two-tiered approach to emergency declarations.
Both organizations outline that…
[ad_2]
Source link
