EQ for the Flight Crew: Safety's Newest Tool
 
By Ron Clark, associate professor of aeronautical science and faculty advisor, Southwest Region, Extended Campus
 
In 1977 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, two B-747 aircraft collided on takeoff, resulting in the world's greatest aircraft loss of human life. Once-in-a-century circumstances were so aligned that only extraordinarily trained flight crew might have persevered without loss of life. Following the Tenerife accident and others involving loss of situational awareness, many airlines began crew resource management (CRM) training programs.

CRM training, which provides flight crews with guidelines and tools for overcoming problems in flight, has lowered the flight crew human factors component of airline accidents to around 60 percent. That's good. But efforts to reduce it further, using the same approach, have shown few results. That's not good.

I believe existing approaches alone cannot substantially reduce the flight crew component of accidents at an acceptable rate. The time has come to move to the next level. I propose that we enhance CRM training with emotional intelligence (EQ) training of flight crews, dispatchers, maintenance personnel, and all others directly involved in airline flight safety decisions.

Imagine pilots who are able to control their frustrations and emotional impulses no matter what is happening on the flight deck.
Pilots have generally accepted CRM training, but have staunchly resisted all efforts to, in their view, "change their personalities" and "brainwash" them and have avoided the largely psychological, "touchy-feely" aspects of training. I believe that they have overlooked important positive aspects. In the 15 years since it surfaced as a management tool in business applications, emotional intelligence has become a popular human development paradigm.

Most experts would agree with Daniel Goleman that EQ includes "abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulses and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope." Raising one's emotional intelligence will result in an enhanced ability to maintain situational awareness in the face of dire emergencies, severe distractions, frustration and anger, and self-control-sapping situations.

Unlike most professional environments, the airline flight deck offers challenges requiring well-trained, sometimes instantaneous responses with no tolerance for error. In this setting, the effects of fatigue and distraction and the strict requirement for near-perfection and clear thinking, even under grave pressure, require an emotional maturity that transcends what is considered "normal."

Imagine pilots who are able to control their frustrations and emotional impulses no matter what is happening on the flight deck. When the mood of the aircraft situation suddenly turns grim or uncertain, high-EQ flight crews would be able to maintain a necessary level-headedness. Picture situations where flight crews are able to understand all overt and body-language communications of others. Finally, envision flight crews that never give up hope, even in the direst of circumstances and especially in unforeseen, untrained-for emergencies. The power of EQ training to impart these skills is a compelling case for extending CRM training to this next level. It is critical to the strengthening of flight crew situational awareness.

Combining human development training and CRM training will lower the flight crew human factors component of accidents faster, save many lives, and conserve valuable assets. It is time for the FAA and the airlines to expand their tools beyond crew resource management alone. It is possible, using web-based applications, to offer reasonably inexpensive emotional intelligence-building applications to airline personnel, particularly flight crew - not to alter personalities or "brainwash" pilots, but to enhance their ability to maintain situational awareness in spite of whatever happens on the flight deck.

Emotional intelligence training will raise flight crews' ability to maintain situational awareness and further decrease the human component of airline incidents and accidents. It is time for EQ training to join the team.

The views expressed in "Perspectives" are those of the writer and not necessarily Embry-Riddle's.