Latest / The Captains Council Podcast / Modern Aspects of Aviation Safety Management
Transcript
- Capt. Francisco Díaz: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this new episode of the Captain's Council podcast. Tonight, we have a very interesting guest with us, Mr. Josh Arnold, who ⁓ has a lot of experience in safety in the United States. We're going to talk about safety, ⁓ the modern aspects of safety or the modern approach to safety and how we can maybe implement some of that in the Dominican Republic. Josh Arnold: Thanks. Capt. Francisco Díaz: I'm going to start by introducing our guest. Josh has over 20 years of experience in the industry, both as a pilot and as a safety ⁓ specialist. He is currently the director of safety for a major US airline. In his education, ⁓ he has a bachelor's degree in political science, philosophy, and economics from the Minnesota State University and a master's degree in aviation safety and management from Emory Riddell Aeronautical University. Josh Arnold: Okay. Capt. Francisco Díaz: ⁓ He has served as a Director of Safety for two different major airlines in the US, what's called a part 19 position, 119 position. And he has managed key safety programs like ASAP, Aviation Safety Action Program, FRMP, Fatigue Risk Management Program, and FDM slash FOQA or Flight Data Monitoring and Flight Operation Quality Assurance. And he has conducted accident and incident investigations. He served. Josh Arnold: you you Okay. you Capt. Francisco Díaz: as the vice chairman and chairman of the airlines of America Flight Safety Committee and acted as the company liaison with national and international government agencies. He's also a type rated pilot in both the Boeing 747 and the Airbus 320. As a disclaimer that we always do, everything we say here is our personal opinion and it doesn't represent our employer. Thank you, Josh, for being with us tonight and for sharing your knowledge with the team. Josh Arnold: Yeah, I appreciate it, Francisco. Thanks. Sometimes I forget how long I've been doing this. makes it, looking back, there's been a lot of good memories, but I'm happy to be here. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Awesome. All right, so today we want to talk about the modern approach to safety management. Safety has been changing over the years a lot and there is different philosophies in the way that things are used today. You as the director of safety for a US airline, tell me about how you have seen the approaches to safety change over the years. Josh Arnold: Yeah, I think certainly we've seen the changes. ⁓ I've been in the safety space since before officially having ⁓ safety management systems on board. was at the first carrier I helped or as part of the team that helped implement SMS and then the second carrier where I currently work. You know, we've we've had a long standing SMS that's been up and running now for nearly 10 years, which is great. So there's been transitions, you know, when I think when many of us grew up in aviation. especially aviation safety. We always go back to saying that rules were written in blood and policies and procedures were pretty much the same. was because someone screwed something up. I think now in today's world, we still live with those basis, but now we're starting to look at our information and our data that the airline is collecting and that other airlines are collecting through industry collaboration or fleet-wide collaboration. we're using that information to be more proactive. I don't think we're quite too predictive yet, but certainly more proactive in our safety management. Capt. Francisco Díaz: And now you mentioned SMS is a very known abbreviation in the industry, but for those who are not there are not there ⁓ quite yet, but or who don't have an aviation background, what does SMS stands for? Josh Arnold: Yeah, so in the US especially, ⁓ SMS is a safety management system. ⁓ For us, it's how the FAA or our regulator has told us how we need to manage our airline. And really, ⁓ it's a data-informed way of running our airline. And then that's through ⁓ risk assessments, safety risk assurance. ⁓ looking at all of the information, looking at all of our programs. ⁓ When we make a decision, whether it's to change something, to change a policy or procedure, to maybe add or delete something in the network, add or remove fleets, all of that is done based on data, based on training data, based on operational data. ⁓ So that's how we've chosen and been told to run the airlines now. Capt. Francisco Díaz: And in the Dominican Republic, where this is kind of oriented, we have seen that a lot of the SMS people are not normally like engineers. They're not pilots for some reason, or don't have an aviation background. How important is to have an aviation background, if anything, when you work in SMS? Josh Arnold: Thank Well, ⁓ I feel like that's kind of a loaded question because from an engineer perspective, excuse me, there's a lot of policy and process that goes into what SMS is that can be auditing, that can be promoting safety, that can be looking at the policies. ⁓ So I think that there is space in aviation and in SMS for a non-pilot. doesn't necessarily mean that you're not an aviation professional. ⁓ I think from a management perspective, there's certain nuance that is gained and understood when you're looking at information from a pilot lens, whether that's how the ground crews are interacting with the flight crews, how the flight crews are interacting with ⁓ your tech ops or your maintenance crews, or how the pilots are interacting with ATC and just the ATC system at large. and all of that supported by dispatch and whatever system operations center that you have. So does it help to be pilot? Certainly. Capt. Francisco Díaz: But when I say a pilot, what I wanted to say was someone with an aviation background. Like we see that in lot of the different companies that we talk to, ⁓ people in the, and even in the government in the Dominican Republic, people that are related to the safety management part of the equation are ⁓ most of the time ⁓ engineers who don't have an aviation background, like... ⁓ ⁓ industrial engineering. It seems to be one of their preferred profession to be a plugin for SMS. So, you know, it's very different from what we have seen in the US where you might not be a pilot, but you might be someone with an aviation background like an air traffic controller or mechanic or aviation administration or something related to aviation where you understand the industry. Josh Arnold: Cut. Capt. Francisco Díaz: we see a big difference in the DR with that. Josh Arnold: Sure, yeah. Yeah, so understanding the question a little better, I would say absolutely. mean, from my perspective, just about every professional that I've worked with at ⁓ two different airlines and then also from an industry-wide perspective have a very general broad base of knowledge in aviation. that's largely through education or just years of experience working with an airline and getting that on-the-job experience. ⁓ And then all of the required training that goes along with working in an airline, whether that's working in an airport's function, a ground ops function, ⁓ tech ops or maintenance, and any one of the support items or any support position that you can think of. Capt. Francisco Díaz: And in your case, you ⁓ do both. You are ⁓ the director of safety, but you are also a type rated certified pilot for the airline. And there are times of the month where you actually go fly the line and you get to see how is the experience of the day-to-day operation as a pilot. ⁓ Tell me how that helps you with your position as director of safety. Josh Arnold: Yeah, absolutely. think it's an invaluable ⁓ aspect to my job. And I think that any, any person within a management structure that has the ability or can fly that does fly, can see the intrinsic value in that. ⁓ I go out and fly at least twice a month, if not more, depending on how the month looks and depends on what my day job of running the safety aspect looks like. ⁓ But it gives me an opportunity every day to audit exactly what we're training. what we're teaching people and also the interactions that we have. So, you from my perspective, if I notice that there's an issue, it not only gives me an opportunity to see problems or go to airports where we have known issues or at least reported issues, I try to put myself on the schedule to go to those areas and understand from the pilot seat what it is that we're experiencing and where we're falling short. And then it gives me an opportunity to go back and talk to those leaders, which is the unique spot that we're in is not only am I sending an email, I'm also following up with a meeting and talking about the experience that I just had, which we know and trust all of our frontline people, but from an office and a support perspective, there is a lot of noise that we have to sift through on a day-to-day basis. And so being able to attach a face and a name and sometimes authority or responsibility with what has happened is vital for the airline, I think. ⁓ It also gives me the opportunity to audit our internal reporting functions. So if I see that there's an issue, not only will I go to wherever I need to, whether it's tech ops, ground ops, airports, ⁓ but I can also file an internal safety action report, or I can file an ASAP report, or I can file a fatigue report. And then I can watch those systems play out as they normally would to see internally how we're doing. for communicating to our front lines if we are providing adequate ⁓ resources and feedback to whatever may be reported. So for me, it's invaluable to go out and fly around. And I think that most of the people in a management structure would feel the same if they have the opportunity. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Amazing. ⁓ And then how, how is, what is the importance of transparency in all of this? You know, this is another ⁓ aspect of safety that we have seen in the Dominican Republic that is very different from the U.S. ⁓ It seems that down there, they want to hide everything. There is actually a regulation from the ⁓ aviation regulator that says that Mostly everything related with safety is confidential. They don't publish statistics, so we don't know if there is an increase or decrease of incidents or what kind of incidents. And it's frustrating as a US guy looking at all of this. What is the importance of transparency in all this? Josh Arnold: Yeah, I think you asked a great question. It's also a loaded question. There's a ton ⁓ of need from a frontline perspective and even sometimes externally to benchmark against yourself with the use of ⁓ transparent sharing of information. But then there's also internally, and I understand the question really is about potentially the government or even airlines. But even internally, there's a big difference between confidential and anonymous. So for us, all of our reporting is confidential. So we keep the reports and the submitters names confidential, but that doesn't mean that it's anonymous. so internally, we'll share sometimes the confidential reports, the narratives that someone may be submitted, whether it's through ASAP or whether it's through one of our other reporting functions could be a fatigue program. And allowing, keeping the confidentiality. of the person or the submitter, using that information in a transparent way to share that with our frontline or even our regulators to say, hey, this is what we're seeing. ⁓ is ⁓ what we're going to do or an ⁓ that we want to fix or work on. ⁓ We see huge benefits there. And then also for the external kind of stakeholders in the game, ⁓ in the US we have a ASIAS So. I should know this off the top of my head, the aviation safety analysis and information sharing is what that is. ⁓ And that's really all of the US airlines submitting or sharing their flight data monitoring or their FOQA information into a database. So it's all ⁓ aggregate, de-identified information. And it allows us to see how we operate as an airline versus other airlines within the US, which, you know, likely you want to be number one in everything as long as it's not number one, meaning the worst, you want to be the best at everything. ⁓ But it gives you an apples to apples comparison, whether you're looking at wide body to wide body or narrow body to narrow body or regional to regional, you know, airplane size. And that can be things like unstable approaches and rejected takeoffs and ⁓ cheap whiz warnings or GPWS warnings. So And for us, sharing that information and being transparent with where we are as a company versus other companies has really given us ⁓ huge dividends and returns from a safety perspective. Capt. Francisco Díaz: You mentioned something interesting, which is the benchmark. I learned talking to you about this in the using LOSA, the LOSA program. At one point, ⁓ the captain's council was talking to the Dominican government trying to start LOSA in the Dominican Republic. And I understand your airline does LOSA here in the United States. Let's talk about how does the benchmark work with LOSA and how you guys integrate that. with your daily operations. First of all, what is loss so people know and how is the benchmark used? Josh Arnold: Sure, so LOSA is a fabulous tool. think some companies in the US run what they call a continuous LOSA. So they essentially either pick items on a line operations perspective that they want to monitor, or if they maybe perhaps introduce a new procedure, SOP, call out, whatever it may be. They'll do a LOSA to see if it's working or if it's sticking the way that they intended. it may cause additional training or tweaking of whatever they put in there. But put simply LOSA is a line operation ⁓ safety assessment. It used to be a line observation safety audit. They've kind of moved away from the audit word and use assessment now. ⁓ But really that's also just to show that there's an evolution. The audit was essentially a one-time snapshot. Take a look and see how we're doing. The assessment is exactly what it entails. It's just, it's more ongoing. I feel like most companies now around the world are using LoSA more frequently, whether it's continuous or whether it's snapshots, we call it. at the airline I work at, we do snapshots. So it's once every four years, we take a look and see how we're doing compared to the way we did. And then we do have the opportunity to benchmark. LoSA now has been around for ⁓ many years, but There are different companies that do it. The company that we use is probably one of the oldest and most comprehensive. And so that gives us the opportunity to have access to the worldwide database of information that ⁓ they've gone out and collected. And it gives us the opportunity to benchmark where we are as an operator versus where others are. And that benchmarking is really great too from an operator to operator perspective. whether you fly Boeing wide bodies, the company will allow you to benchmark overt, you know, to Boeing wide bodies or if you're flying narrow body Airbus, you get to benchmark towards narrow body Airbus or whatever the operation is. If you do both, some companies have both. So you would benchmark, you know, some aspects towards the Boeing wide bodies, some aspects towards, you know, the Airbus narrow bodies and just narrow bodies in general. So it gives you an opportunity. Low says run by pilots, usually within the organization that can be external from ⁓ whatever operator is out there. You are assigned to sit in the flight deck jump seat and just watch. So as a trained pilot, you sit and watch how the two pilots in the operating seats operate. ⁓ And there's a grading sheet and essentially you go through the grading sheet, mark down a whole bunch of notes as to what happened through each different phase of flight. And once the flight is over, the observer walks away. They are everyone in the industry and every training piece, they act like a fly on the wall. They act as if they aren't there. They are truly just watching. So there's no training that comes out of each flight that is observed. There's no debrief items. Oftentimes we hear that pilots do turn around and say, how'd we do? What'd you find? What'd you catch? And that's not the intent of LOSA. LOSA is really just to be there, to watch, take the notes, and then aggregate the data after all of the flight observations are done to come up with areas of strengths and weaknesses at the end of the assessment. Capt. Francisco Díaz: And you mentioned something about confidentiality and now mentioning you're talking about the pilots being part of the whole equation. And several times you mentioned ASAP, right? The Aviation Safety Action Program. And this is something that we push hard in the Dominican Republic. And he got to a point that one of the advisors of the regulator who used to be an FAA guy said, ⁓ I don't see the Dominican Republic having the capacity to have an ASAP. And for us, it's frustrated to see this because we see the need big time of having this triangle of ASAP. So just so we understand a little bit of how it works, ⁓ ASAP uses like a three part program where you have the regulator, you have the airline, and then you have the union of the pilots or mechanics represented. Josh Arnold: you Capt. Francisco Díaz: Every time somebody files an ASAP, which is a safety report and it goes to this committee of three people or three representatives and then they decide if ⁓ if this was something that was done by mistake or if it's something that was done ⁓ with intention of doing it and then if he was a mistake an honest mistake The person doesn't get penalized about that Josh Arnold: Thanks. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Tell us a little bit about how you guys use ASAP ⁓ in the safety department. Josh Arnold: Yeah, from my perspective ASAP is a cornerstone to ⁓ SMS and how we run our safety management system. We have different ASAPs for different operational groups. Right now we do have it for all of our certificated people. So we have it for our dispatchers, we have it for our technicians and maintenance. We have it for the pilots and we also have it for the in-flight crew members. So all of our flight attendants. ⁓ And I would say, dispelling rumors or what everyone says that, especially from a regulator perspective, to get out of jail free card, I think it's anything but. ⁓ The companies that I've been a part of and the people that I know that work. ⁓ throughout the U S industry are very judicious in their application of. reading and understanding the reports to make sure that no one's acting intentionally or actually acting, ⁓ with, with reckless intent. ⁓ you know, so from our perspective, if you make an honest mistake while you're out flying or working on it, you know, fixing an airplane, dispatching an airplane, and you realize that because you're human, you made a mistake. Someone else's. likely going to make that mistake. And so you self-report that and say, Hey, I messed this up. ⁓ you know, this is what I personally will do. A lot of times we, we need to have a recommendation there. So, Hey, I easy example is, I busted an altitude next time. You know what? I'm going to make sure that I don't talk during the last thousand feet, ⁓ before level off or something of that nature. ⁓ so you've got your own recommendation, the company, the the association and the regulator read that and either decide was your own recommendation and your self remediation good enough or do they as the ERC, which is the event review committee, need to step in and maybe offer some more guidance and that guidance can take on a host of different things. That could be a conversation on the phone. It could be a meeting in person. It could be directed training. ⁓ Usually it's one of those three items. And then You know, the pilot or the technician is sent on their way after completing that. But from our perspective, we are starting to grow from just having people self-report and say, hey, I messed this up to people who are saying, you know, I almost messed this up or, know, because of our procedures and our policies, I didn't mess it up, but someone else maybe would mess this up. And that is really helpful for us because we're able to go back and look at our policies, procedures. and decide, can we tweak this a little better for this situation or that situation so that someone else doesn't find themselves in the same trap. Capt. Francisco Díaz: So it seems that you guys use a lot of numbers, a lot of statistics. My next question was, Taylor, in that direction, ⁓ what is the importance of the use of statistics in today's safety environment? Josh Arnold: I think the use of stats. probably the least fun part of my job, ⁓ just because everything is, I'm not a huge math guy, but I've been forced into it with today's safety world. Everything we do is statistically related. ⁓ You know, we look at whether it's ASAP reports, whether it's flight data monitoring or FOQA stuff, all of it is run by statistics these days. And it's looking at our... Are our reports, is our reporting rate higher or lower? Why is it statistically relevant from last month to this month? Do we have more unstable approaches? ⁓ Is it statistically relevant seeing the change? ⁓ Utilizing these items from a safety perspective, we look at such small numbers, that's what the statistics come in and help us is we're looking at, we're looking at, and not even, whole percentage changes when we're looking at where we see issues. And that's a funny thing too, is from a safety perspective, a lot of people think that safety is sexy for lack of better terms, because it's all about investigations and digging into the root cause of something. But the reality is safety is won or lost based on the statistics and identifying our trends. And our trends aren't graphs that will show big skyrockets one way or the other. It's looking at tenths and hundreds of percentage point changes in how we're operating the aircraft if we're seeing more or less reports and trying to correct on just a very, very small ⁓ change. So I don't know if that is too broad of an answer, but statistics is huge for us. And it also from a safety you know, an SMS perspective or safety management perspective, the statistics really help us justify change or not to change. That's a big piece too, especially with working with the regulators is they'll, I see something, you know, well, hey, you, I don't know. Yeah. You had an engine pod scrape or a tail scrape or, you know, something of that nature. You've got to change how you land the airplane or train how you lay on the airplane. Well, let's take look at the statistics. This happened once in the last five years and the last five years, maybe we operated five million flights. So from a safety perspective, when we look at the statistics in one in five million, you know, our risk exposure there is pretty low. So tactically, there was something wrong with this day, whether it was the schedule and fatigue, whether it was distraction, whether there was some sort of startle or surprise effect that happened in the flight deck that, perhaps changed or disruption that changed how the pilots that are trained operated. Can we train that out of them or can we give them more awareness? Sure. Can we maybe share some of that information with the pilot group at large? Sure. But that doesn't mean that we need to necessarily make a change. And the statistics help us to justify that one way or the other. Capt. Francisco Díaz: You know, now listening to you, I, ⁓ I was taken back to conversations we had with companies and the regular in the Dominican Republic and especially the, the subject of fatigue, right? ⁓ so here in the U S fatigue is, a big deal, ⁓ in a company like yours and mine where we do trans-oceanic flights, ⁓ red eye, red eye flights. And, know, we fly all, ⁓ any time of the day, ⁓ it's a big deal. How do you guys handle fatigue from the safety perspective? And how do you interact with the union, with the pilot union for that purpose? Josh Arnold: Great question. ⁓ I think it depends on the schedule that could be maybe in question, ⁓ but we do work hand in hand with our association in coming up with pilot pairings, looking at pilot pairings both before they get published, so proactively and then reactively, trying to understand where they broke, how they broke, if someone called in fatigued. We also take a look at all of our hazard reports. we not only have for. Capt. Francisco Díaz: And the pilot, sorry, and the pilot pairing is when they build up the schedule, right? And how the crew, how the trip and the crew is put together for that trip or for those days. Josh Arnold: Yes, yeah, the trip. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Are you going to show up at 6 a.m. and fly till 6 p.m. with maybe three flights in between? Is it one flight? Are you showing up in the middle of the night flying one flight or two flights? ⁓ How many pilots are on the flight deck? Is there two? Is there three? ⁓ What that makeup looks like? All factors into it. So we work with the association to help, like I said, proactively look at those trips and how they're designed, pairings we'll call them. ⁓ And then we'll reactively look at them as well. So if someone calls out fatigued and said, ⁓ you know, man, I just couldn't do this. ⁓ Where most commonly do we see that or what pairing in what city, what schedule, you know, what, what caused that? So hopefully we can avoid it in the, in the next month. And that's mutually beneficial. And that's, it's beneficial from the pilot association side because their pilots aren't, you know, going out and being as fatigued or tired or. putting themselves potentially in a more risky situation. And same thing from the company, we're not putting pilots out there that are in those positions as well. And so it also helps us from a productivity perspective. If they're not calling out fatigue because the pairing or the trip was really tough, it keeps the machine moving. It just keeps the pilots or where they're supposed to be, the airplanes or where they're supposed to be in the schedule ⁓ is more consistent that way. So we work hand in hand. Capt. Francisco Díaz: You mentioned something ⁓ interesting and as you said, ⁓ when somebody called fatigue, right? So here in the US, normally ⁓ if you don't feel fit to fly, even if you're coming from vacation, this is a big deal because talking to a company in the Dominican Republic their day, one of the management persons say, how can someone call fatigue coming from vacation? Well, it can be a thousand different things that didn't let you to sleep well. and rest well before that flight. And it's not necessarily the fault of the pilot, right? So calling fatigue, when somebody says I'm unable to fly, I'm fatigued, they're pulled out of the flight. They're put in a rest period, depending on the company, X amount of hours. ⁓ No questions asked. That's a big part of it. And interesting with this company, they were telling us that over the years they have zero fatigue calls. And that was like a red flag for us right there because how can you have zero fatigue calls when you're dealing with humans, right? ⁓ So, but then talking to them, we understood that they meant ⁓ they do like a ritual analysis. And basically if he was related to the operation or the way they build the schedule, then they classify it as real fatigue. If he was related to something else. like I couldn't sleep well because I'm whatever, ⁓ then they call it, are tired. So it's interesting how they did that definition in the US. Do we have a difference between being tired, unable to fly for X reason and being fatigued? Josh Arnold: Hmm. So each company will do it differently or each program will do it differently. ⁓ Internally, we have what's called system driven versus non system driven. So if it's system driven, it's, you know, whether it's rolling delays, it's how the trip was constructed or pairing. If it's non system driven, that's more ⁓ personal issues. That's you weren't able to get rest at home or you weren't able to ⁓ you know, get proper rest at a hotel and in theory on paper, all of the things that should have made you or allowed you to get proper rest were there. ⁓ so that's how we go back and forth between system versus non-system. ⁓ it depends too. We've, we've got a bunch of different, ⁓ safety kind of guard rails in there where, you know, if you call out fatigued a certain amount of times, we'll start looking at, know, maybe it's how you're bidding or you know, what pairings, some people just don't fully grasp how to monitor their own biorhythm and their own sleep schedule. So sometimes the association reaches out and says, hey, you know, have you done these things to help, you know, avoid getting fatigued? And sometimes the pilots say, didn't think of that. Capt. Francisco Díaz: But you guys, but if he's non-system driven, if he's the person, it is still classified as fatigue, correct? Josh Arnold: Still classified as fatigue. Yep. Still, still in our system. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Yes, correct. Yeah, because that was that was a little back and forth where we had a group of US airline captains in this meeting and everybody went what zero fatigue calls and after talking we understood that they were classifying it differently. It was the same thing, right? They were not being punitive with the pilots, but they said, ⁓ no, if he's non-system driven, it's not real fatigue. It is tiredness. ⁓ okay. So we that's, know, we were, it's amazing how we were speaking different languages, even though it was everything in Spanish. Josh Arnold: Yeah, yeah. Which is interesting too, to make a distinction between fatigue and tired, because there are times where you're not necessarily, I mean, you could be fatigued and not necessarily be tired, you know, or sleepy. You you could be just mentally worn out, which is fatigue. Yeah. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Right. It happened to me. It happened to me in Korea. I did, I did four crossings of the Pacific in a week and I was in Incheon and I called fatigue for a flight. And, ⁓ after sleeping 10, 12 hours, actually I couldn't go to sleep because I was so tired. I couldn't sleep. So I ended up eating, going to the gym and I, then I was able to sleep a couple of hours. Then the company calls me back and I said, I'm still tired. I'm still drained. And I remember that I had, was going to the bathroom a lot. I was sweating. I ended up calling my doctor here in Miami. I explained all the symptoms and he said to me, you are extremely fatigued. Now this is a medical issue. And I had to call back the company and said, listen, I am changing my classification from fatigue to sick. I'm actually sick. And I remember one of the chief pilots asked me, how can you do that? What are you talking about? And I said, this is what my doctor told me to tell you. And they ended up giving me like three days because my doctor said, you need like three days to sleep and you need a lot of water, get hydrated, eat well in order to get back into the game. And it really happened. like, it was really, really hard. Josh Arnold: Yeah. Yeah, fatigue is, is no joke. It can manifest in so many different ways. And whether it's, whether it's fatigue or tiredness or whatever, as a pilot too, you certainly shouldn't be operating an aircraft in that state. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Yes. ⁓ So just now to conclude, you know, having a director of safety of a major airline here and you know, we had that the recent recent accident in LaGuardia. We have the aircraft collision in in D.C. last year. Where do you see ⁓ aviation safety going in the United States in the foreseeable future? Josh Arnold: Yeah, in the hot seat. That's the question, right? ⁓ So my personal opinion is, you know, Francisco, you've certainly flown around the world a whole bunch of times. Personally, it's my feeling that the US is behind in aviation, probably not safety, but aviation technology and implementation, certainly. I mean, it's pretty wild to me that you can land in London Heathrow and they say follow the green line to your gate. You land in JFK and they say, Left on Whiskey, right on Echo, short of Bravo Bravo, hold short of runway four left, cross two two, behind the A380 and contact ground on the other side. And all of this happened potentially after you just were the pilot flying, landing, switching roles to pilot monitoring. There's so much cognitive overload that happens. It's mind blowing. And the fact that JFK versus London Heathrow, which Capt. Francisco Díaz: That's right. Josh Arnold: without looking at the statistics, I would imagine that they're landing and taking off about the same amount of airplanes ⁓ on a regular basis. So I think the US has finally gathered the interest or intrigue or the support of the general public, which has been lacking for so long. Again, I think there's a function of the US just making things work. I think the professionalism of the pilots and the training and just getting used to how the system works. ⁓ I think we've finally gotten to a point where it's starting to break, whether it's the pilots that are more seasoned that are retiring and there's younger ⁓ pilots joining the ranks, or whether it's how the older generation was trained versus the new generation. If it was the older generation that... you know, saw the de-evolution of things and were able to keep up with it. And the new generation with all of the technology that is available is finally saying enough is enough. I think there's a bunch of us in the US safety industry or safety space across the industry that are finally saying, hey, look, you know, we all have information that we're sharing with each other that says that, you know, we're exposed to risk. And finally, because of DCA and likely, you know, adding onto it with the Guardia, finally, the FAA can't sit by any longer and say, you all as carriers just figured out or deal with it. Now we're saying we've done all we can. You know, we've, we've followed our own SMS steps one through 10. We're at 10 of 10, no matter how many new people, new talent, good, you know, thought providers that are out there. we've maximized the capacity of our internal SMSes. Now it's time for the US to change, whether it's procedures, staffing, airspace design, ⁓ use of ADS-B, know, next gen, I think is a funny word because next gen has been around for at least 20 years. I don't know when the next gen is gonna happen, but I think ⁓ that now is the right time. And finally, with seemingly getting funding, ⁓ Capt. Francisco Díaz: 20 years, yeah. Josh Arnold: into the Department of Transportation and the FAA. ⁓ And potentially, you know, the administration that is at the FAA now is going to be able to get some of this stuff done. But I see it getting better. I see it getting better very slowly. And I really wish that we were able to catch up and be at least as good, ⁓ if not better, than our counterparts in Europe and the EASA, ⁓ things like that. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Well, yeah, it's going to be a big challenge and we can all see it ⁓ developing. there's also been a huge amount of traffic. I mean, increase in traffic. It's amazing. You open flight radar 24 and there is six, 8,000 flights over the continental United States. It's crazy. ⁓ So it's a big challenge. Well, thank you. Yes. Josh Arnold: And it's getting worse, even not only in part 121 world, but think about the general aviation world too. I know that you fly smaller planes every once in a while too. And what's crazy to me is that we have more airliners. I I think I can say that United has something like 250 airplanes on order for the next few years and that's organic growth. They're not gonna try to retire a bunch of airplanes. So that just... in one company is 250 airplanes more flying around. The other carriers, I'm sure, keeping up with that ⁓ to the extent that they can. And then on top of that, you have access to more general aviation, but fewer airports because all the people with the noise complaints and everything else, so the traffic is getting concentrated in fewer and fewer airports ⁓ as we gain more and more air traffic. Certainly there's never been a better time to better utilize ADSB, get ATC staffing where it needs to be, tower, know, ground, Traycon, you name it. Yeah, busy, times. Capt. Francisco Díaz: You know, it's interesting that you point to that as an increase of risk, where in the Dominican Republic last week, the Captain's Council ⁓ published a press release talking about our concern with air traffic control in the Dominican Republic because of the amount of traffic during peak hours, saturation around different airports, and it's a lot of the same problems that we see in the US. In the United States, at least, we have had ⁓ busy airports for decades. In the Dominican Republic, this is a new thing, having these busy airports in a smaller space, ⁓ traffic converging from different directions and so forth. And it's becoming very saturated. So we are following right behind the US in this risk, and we need to work on it to mitigate the risk. Josh Arnold: you Yeah. Capt. Francisco Díaz: like we always do. Well, Mr. Josh Arnold, thank you very much for ⁓ we will love to have you for another episode later where we want to talk about accident investigation. We know you participated in one of ⁓ one of those, you know, bad situations where there was a major accident in the United States and you work closely both with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board. So we want to hear all about that later in a a. Thank you for your time tonight and if you have one last thing you want to tell everyone, it's all yours. Josh Arnold: No, I really appreciate the opportunity, Francisco, to be on here. I think safety transcends culture. think providing a safety culture for not only the airlines, but also the aviation world at large is hugely important. So if there's anything that I can do to help with that, and I know that the Captain's Council is doing all that they can, but it's It helps not only the pilots, but it helps the passengers, the customers, and the citizens of the world, really. So I commend you all for what you're doing. Capt. Francisco Díaz: Thank you. And for you guys, for everybody else listening to us, remember you can find us in YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Please subscribe to the Catalyst Council Podcast and we'll see you next time. Thank you, Josh. Josh Arnold: Thank you.