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Subject:Re: Procedures in real time From:Jan Cohen <najnehoc -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> Date:Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:53:53 -0700 (PDT)
Thanks, Peter--couldn't agree more!
________________________________
From: Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: Jan Cohen <najnehoc -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Sent: Thu, June 17, 2010 10:07:33 PM
Subject: Re: Procedures in real time
Jan Cohen wrote:
> As for the incident with the aircraft door, that one's a bit simpler to crack.
> I parked fighter jets during my time in the Air Force and if one thing was
> written in stone it was the need to chock the aircraft tires and insert
> the locking pins ...
In some situations safety comes from training (and testing and retraining). In others it's from individual responsibility, like requiring the man who packs parachutes to jump a random 'chute pulled from the rack. Or like my Uncle Ernie (now dead over 30 years) who would have been fired on the spot at Raytheon if one of the compressed-gas cylinders that was checked out to him were ever found in improper configuration. Proper configuration (and this is true today) is that the cylinder is chained to the wall (or otherwise secured safely upright) or has its protective hood screwed on tightly.
When I'm shopping, Ernie and I check out the helium-balloon cylinders at the grocery store, and confront the store's manager if they're not in proper configuration. (Ernie's still unavoidably domiciled in my brain.)
A key part of safety and safety training is the attitude of management. If management have isolated themselves from daily operation, or if they give a silent nod to unsafe methods, then the tech writer, the trainer and the safety engineer might as well take a nap, for all the good they'll be able to accomplish.
Ultimately, safe operations arise from historical casualties and a proper attitude towards learning from them. Someone has to be ripped apart or at least nearly killed, or an aircraft lost, before the training manual for aircraft gets a standard procedure for chocking the wheels. Far earlier, Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrated that carbon monoxide was poisonous by breathing it. He nearly died. Sailors learned how to return to port by avoiding the attitudes of those who were lost overboard. And how do we know which wild mushrooms are poisonous?
The prepared mind, though, is crucial. The manager who sees an accident as, "We screwed up. Let's not repeat the mistake," creates a far different training manual from the manager who sees accidents as, "It was the hand of fate, with nothing we could do."
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