Flexible Procedures to Deal with Complex Unexpected Events in the Cockpit

Modern airliner operations consist of an environment with multiple detailed procedures to cover critical abnormal events and with systems that are automated and highly reliable. Complex and unexpected events are rare and may thus present a challenge to the crew to deal with, putting demands on the resilience of the crew. In the EU Man4Gen project a “flexible procedure” was developed as a strategy to assist flight crew in dealing with unexpected events where an existing procedure was not available. This procedure is intended to assist crews in adapting their response to the situation and be more flexible in their application of their procedures and training to increase the effectiveness of their response. This paper describes the procedure and its development within the project based on two sets of flight simulator experiments with operational flight crew. The resulting flexible procedure consists of steps to help crews manage time criticality, manage (un)certainty and finally to plan for contingencies and changes. This forms the basis of the discussion of how procedures can be a source of resilience in the cockpit, rather than forming a barrier to it.Manual Operations for 4th Generation Aircraft