B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Distraction; Human-Machine Interface
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Aircraft; Company Policy; Human Factors
This is a resubmission of a report. There was no deviation or violation. My main concern isn't this 'specific' story; but the trend of things that I see happening around here and the mindset. Thanks By now you're probably tired of reading my complaints about the outrageously loud 'ONE THOUSAND; FIVE HUNDRED;' etc. auto callouts from the GPWS system on the B757. NOTHING in an airplane cockpit needs to be that loud! Ditto with the ridiculous 'DING; DING' interruptions from PEGASUS during taxi. Both of these situations occur in the most critical phases of flight when a conscientious pilot needs to be paying attention to business. But I do sincerely feel that these are indeed serious safety of flight items; not only from the standpoint of the distractions they cause as well as the overall flight department mindset that allows these; and so many other distractions in our cockpits. I have felt; and still feel our company is overdue for a major accident; because of the mindset that ignores things like this; as well as several other issues. I'm a big believer in the 'silent cockpit' principle that basically says no warnings unless something is wrong (and then not that loud!). If nothing is wrong I don't need a warning and NOTHING in a cockpit needs to be that loud. I know that one reason that there are not more complaints is that many of our pilots are either hard of hearing; or have developed the ability to totally ignore these noises. In a way; I'm envious that they can block this nonsense out; but one does have to live in the real world. Recently I observed a real world example of the later and how it could have an effect on safety. A little background; the First Officer that I flew with was junior; but had about a year and half on the airplane. While an OK guy I would say his flying skills were below average (becoming more and more common around here). Example; [him] wanting to put the gear out at 250 KTS [and] 35 miles out because that was the only way that he knew how to slow the airplane. He flew only one leg and was doing an ILS to a runway with a displaced threshold. From about 6 miles out he (halfway) hand flew the approach; (steered; but let the auto throttles do half the work). I'll give him credit for trying as it's more than most do. At any rate as he got closer; he got low. And lower. Then we get 'GLIDESLOPE; GLIDESLOPE; GLIDESLOPE.' Being one that's hesitant to give flying lessons to an airline pilot; I didn't say anything and expected him to level off and silence the calls. He didn't! 'GLIDESLOPE; GLIDESLOPE' was continuously going off. I finally said something; and then said it again (and again). He didn't respond. Ultimately he made a poor (but not unsafe) landing with 'GIDESLOPE' going off throughout the approach. For the record; he landed on the runway and not the threshold. Afterward we talked about it. I asked him why he didn't flatten out the approach to silence the glide slope warning or didn't respond to my instructions. His response surprised me; but after thinking about it actually made some sense. He said he never heard the glide slope warnings or me for that matter. He went on to state that there is so much noise in our cockpits that he's just learned to tune it out. I actually understood what he meant. I just wonder what is going to happen when he (or numerous other pilots) get 'TERRIAN; TERRIAN' or 'PULL UP; PULL UP' and fly into a mountain because they've blocked out all of the meaningless noises and can't pay attention to the important ones. Maybe if we could silence the non important noise; someone might then actually pay attention to 'GLIDESLOPE' when it happens?
A B757 Captain expressed concern that excessively loud; omnipresent automated voices; alerts; advisories; etc. in his airline's cockpits are more of a distraction than a safety asset.