Post Crew Resource Management

Abstract

The crew of United Airlines flight 811 (UAL 811) paved the way. Ten years after the introduction of Crew Resource Management, they were the first to publicly speak out in favor of the concept after being motivated by the following incident: on February 24, 1989, they were en route from Honolulu to Sydney in a Boeing 747–122 when, 17 minutes after takeoff, the front right cargo door sprang open. This caused an explosive decompression that ripped off the door, parts of the fuselage on the right of the plane, and sections of the cabin. Some of the debris entered both of the engines on the right, causing them to fail. Even in these circumstances, the crew managed to keep the heavily loaded plane under control and make it back to the airport in Honolulu.¹⁵¹ Much of this extraordinary achievement they attributed to their CRM training. Accordingly, we will see how strikingly different their interactions with one another were compared to the crews in our previous cases.