The Hurry-up syndrome

The Hurry-up syndrome by Javier Viana

This article is about time pressure in the cockpit, or hurry up syndrome or get-there-it is, as you want to call it and their relation to errors.

Although time pressure could be perceived in both seats, that is, as a Captain or as a First Officer, the Captain is the one responsible to establish a pace in the execution of SOP in the cockpit, and finally he will be responsible in front of the Company supervisor for the delay in the flight.

First of all, we need to set the basis of what an error is. For that, I have taken the Professor Reason’s types of error that follows. Professor Reason suggests an error classification. The most well-known of these are slips, lapses, and mistakes. Violations are not taken as errors.

Slips can be thought of as actions not carried out as intended or planned, e.g. When you are changing the frequency in your audio box and you finger trouble it or when you fill out the flight log book with errors due to the time pressure to do it in a second. Slips usually occur at the task execution stage.

Lapses are missed actions and omissions, i.e. when somebody has failed to do something due to lapses of memory and/or attention or because they have forgotten something, e.g. signing the Load Sheet without checking the flight number, or aircraft registration or Dry operating weight. Lapses usually occur at the storage (memory) stage.

Mistakes are a specific type of error brought about by a faulty plan/intention, i.e. somebody did something believing it to be correct when it was, in fact, wrong. That is, you follow correctly your intention, but your intention is faulty. Mistakes usually occur at the planning stage.

Violations sometimes appear to be human errors, but they differ from slips, lapses, and mistakes because they are deliberate illegal actions, i.e. somebody did something knowing it to be against the rules (e.g. deliberately failing to follow proper procedures). An example could be a change in the SID and the Captain keeps on taxying relying on the First Officer to change it on his own, and not double checking it. At the same time, the First Officer is not paying attention to the taxi route as he should be and instead he is head- down on the FMS.

A pilot may consider that a violation is well-intentioned, e.g. taxying at 35 knots trying to reach the runway holding point on time to take off and avoid being stopped there because of a slot time regulation. There is a great debate about whether flight crew should follow SOPs slavishly, or should elect to diverge from SOPs from time to time. Whatever the case, and however well-intentioned, this would still technically constitute a ‘violation’ rather than an error.

The problem when dealing with mistakes is not only trying to avoid them but having a process that operates in such a way that if an error is made, we will be able to find it and to solve it in time.

Research data* suggest that 90% of all time-related errors due to the hurry up syndrome occur in the preflight and taxi out phases, as opposed to all other operational phases. The main difference between these early stages of the flight and the following ones is that preflight usually is non- linear, that is, the crew may be dealing with a lot of problems of different nature at the same time as flight planning, weather information, fuel loading, maintenance, MEL items, etc. whereas in other stages the operational flow is more linear. Another difference is that this stage usually lacks the interpersonal communication that is used in flight when both pilots are seated together. So, in these early stages of the flight, interpersonal communication may be degraded by physical separation of the flight crew members.

Lapses (not intended) are the most common error when dealing with the hurry-up syndrome, as well as violations (intended). Cognitive errors are considered to be those where task executions are flawed in some manner, such as focusing on a task that is less important than other or forgetting a required task. Cognitive errors showed up in 97% of incidents, perceptual errors in 49% of incidents and motor errors in only 6% of them.

So, the initial stages of the flight should be considered high workload phases in our minds, and we need to follow SOPs as much as we can in order to avoid losing the situational awareness (SA). In other words, try to make the preflight as more linear as possible in your mind.

External distractions should be avoided as well for the same reason. High workload phases do not admit distractions. The use of the mobile phone should be taken just in a professional way, avoiding making personal calls that could worsen our mindset by increasing the problems we have to deal with. If any checklist or procedure is interrupted, starting it from the beginning avoids making errors.

Prioritizing tasks and leaving non-essential tasks to the last moment could help. It is unnecessary to say that any SOP task must be taken as essential. Briefings, double checking of Load sheet, speeds, SIDs, etc. should be done. Checklists are not only mandatory and necessary, but they are the main shield to avoid mistakes. When the crew switch between many different tasks, they are slower and less accurate than when they repeat tasks. That is the main reason why adhering to the SOPs and follow a linear mindset is one of the best things to do.

Good and positive CRM techniques are basic as well, letting the First Officer participate, speak up and give an opinion of any task is also a protective shield to avoid mistakes.

And in this error-prone working environment, time pressure should be avoided in order not to lose the situational awareness. Time pressure environments usually make the crew be blind to the things happening around them that could be going wrong, what is called “tunnel vision” or cognitive lockup. This usually happens as a result of a high cognitive workload. Captains need to set the slot time, the Company calling to know how the preflight is going and the initiation of boarding in such a way that no essential task is postponed or omitted. If this results in a delay, the Captain is not to blame for that.

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·      *Time pressure as a casual factor in Aviation Safety Incidents. The Hurry up syndrome. Jeanne McElhatton and Charales Drew.

·       The effect of time pressure and task completion on the occurrence of cognitive lockup. Ernestina J. A. Schreuder and Tina Mioch