Moral Responsibility versus Organizational Needs.

There's a scary title. It's a scary subject.

First, a legal disclaimer. The following opinion is mine. Under no circumstances should you take my words as anything other than an opinion. There is no attempt, or desire to undermine public confidence in the US Air Traffic Control System, it is the safest in the world. I am going to discuss elements of a briefing that, however, I found morally difficult to swallow. Keep in mind, I'm a INFP, and so when I become upset on a values level, I tend to simmer, and eventually break out the lance and charge the windmill. That's what healer-guardians do...

Having said that, Let me back up the tale a bit. A while back, there was an aircraft accident involving a Lifeguard flight that was flying VFR through mountainous terrain during a mid shift. To make the long story short, it crashed, killing both pilots. The reasons for the crash have yet to be officially determined by the NTSB, and that really isn't the subject of my rant, anyway.

We had a preliminary briefing on the accident last week. In it, management outlined the basics of the crash, and explained which rules the controller appeared to have violated (none caused the crash, rather they were procedural things that liability lawyers love to pick at) The gist of their briefing was that we should be careful, follow the rules, because if you don't, the liability lawyers will get us. (DD, help me out if I missed an important point)

Then we got a counter-point from the union side, the controller involved explained how the NTSB investigation went. He wasn't arguing that he didn't do things wrong, or cut corners. Rather, it seemed to me that his whole point was that, the interviews were scary and inconvenient to him, taking 5 hours of his day, and as such, he'll never put himself in that situation again.

Time and again, we've heard the scare stories, "Screw up, and some attorney will sue your pants off." I asked around, in the 20+ years I've been at Denver center, there have been only 2 or 3 cases where controllers have had to testify in a accident lawsuit, and in none of these cases, were the controllers facing any financial penalty, or career termination. However, they've had the inconvenience of being grilled by an attorney who was trying to fix blame in such a way that someone will get a lot of money, or the FAA won't have to pay.

Now, I"m all for avoiding inconvenience. And I really don't want to get involved in an NTSB investigation, I've been involved in a fatal accident, and I felt horrible, even though there was nothing I'd done, or could do. But, the sense I got from the controller's statement was that, he'd been trying to help a vfr pilot, the pilot screwed up, the controller cut some corners and now he's inconvenienced. It seemed he was saying, "THEREFORE, I SHALL NEVER HELP A VFR PILOT OUT IN MARGINAL CONDITIONS AGAIN, AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU, CAUSE YOU"LL BE INCONVENIENCED."

I heard the statement (paraphrased, but basically correct). I looked around the room and saw far too many people nodding in agreement. I wanted to scream.

Here's where I disagree. I've helped VFR pilots in similar situations (no radar coverage, marginaly vfr conditions, confusing situation) In at least one instance, I'm convinced my actions (in advising the vfr pilot to stay on my frequency, even though I couldn't see where he was, so I could feed him weather info and eventually talk him into returning to Goodland Kansas, and when he decided he was lost, vector him toward the airport after using rules to figure out where he really was) probably saved lives for that very evening there were two vfr plane crashes due to icing in the area into which my vfr was flying. Had I told him, "Can't see you, leave me alone", he could very well have been the third accident that night.

Now, I'm not advocating putting myself (and hence, the FAA) in an impossible situation, either. Follow the rules, tell the pilot about the dangers ahead, do everything you can think of to help him, but don't abandon him because it's inconvenient for you if he crashes. Sure, inconvenient, but he'll be dead. that's real inconvenience.

That's where the title of this post comes in. When I helped the VFR pilot years ago, my supervisor put it in for an award. But when QA listened to the tapes, they found 3 instances where I'd omitted the word 'suggested' (out of 7 times) when suggesting a heading for the lost VFR pilot. Because of it, they couldn't submit the "save", because the lawyers will pick it apart. Then, I was taken aside by an area manager and told though I'd done a fairly good job, in essence I'd put the agency at risk for being sued, had the pilot actually crashed while following one of my 'suggested' headings. The exact quote was, "sometimes, you have to balance the needs of the organization against the needs of the pilot". In other words, 'don't inconvenience us by helping too much when the rules don't allow it."

Gaah! DOn't help, cause we might get sued! Gaah! Gaah!

My moral responsibility is to help pilots stay out of trouble. My moral responsibility will always trump the fear of inconvenience to myself. I don't like it that there are many controller who don't feel this way, but... Those of us who do will always try.

Anyway. It's a rant. And again, it's an opinion.

TTFN,
JIm