Workload; Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Chart Or Publication; Company Policy
I am writing this report because I have concerns with the approach that my company has taken toward changing our departure papers in the international arena; over the past several months. I have filed several internal event reports expressing dissatisfaction with the packages I am being presented with to evaluate weather on the route of flight; consistent with my PIC requirements per the FAR's and the Company FOM Volume 2. The replies have been unsigned; inconsistent and unsatisfactory. The trend of late has been to provide only weather for the Origin; Destination and Alternate airports. The only imagery provided is typically the High Level Significant Weather Chart. This chart normally has approximately 120 degrees of latitude in black and white and shrunk down to an 8' x 11' piece of paper. Not what most would consider an insightful or useful planning tool. Furthermore in 4 of 7 of the past seven legs it was for the wrong theater of operation. As an example I will illustrate. This flight was planned as is usual departing from an Asian airport westward across the South China Sea; Southeast Asia; Bay of Bengal; the Indian Subcontinent and the Indian Ocean into the Arabian Sea and onto to Dubai. The plan was 3;000 plus NM and a time of approximately 8 hours and 23 minutes enroute. The weather provided to me was a Significant Weather Chart of the North Pacific starting at approximately 130 East and traveling eastwards to 110 West. This chart was not relevant to the theater of operation. My printed weather was for the departure airport; one enroute and the alternate; approximately 20 KM from [destination]. The rest of the package was 16 pages of NOTAMS and company bulletins. The Indian Ocean; Indian Subcontinent and the Himalayan Mountains are all significant weather producers and the package provided to me has me 'flying in the blind.' In order to satisfy my FAR/FOM requirements and my own comfort as the PIC I have begun resorting to calling our Dispatch Office and getting a verbal route briefing as well as requesting printed METAR/TAF for select aerodromes along the route of flight. One of the items I would like to note is that in all cases during the requested briefing I have found confusion on the part of the dispatcher as to why I don't have enroute weather information. The other important note is that the dispatchers seem to have the erroneous believe that we have computers and other tools in these international gateways that we can use to 'self-brief.' On the trip highlighted; over 10 days I was in the Middle East and Asia. I never saw a computer and all paperwork is done in the cockpit. That is normal per our Company's international operations. This particular trip example is a daylight flight. But it is not relevant to the product and a subsequent night flight along similar routing also was dispatched with the same type of product. My Carrier is asking me as the PIC to sign a flight release which includes a dispatched amount of fuel in which I have no way to evaluate the reasonableness of the flight plan except to know if weather at destination is legal. That is it. And based on my experience receiving briefings in the past from contracts with other international airlines we are operating with a substandard and unsafe product. I would highly encourage Management to significantly re-evaluate their departure papers product to ensure compliance with not only the letter of the FAR's but also the 'spirit' of the regulations. I also ask that the FAA to take due diligence and get the Company to provide us with the required weather. This is a safety concern that needs to be addressed now. Operating at the minimums might be acceptable when flying short domestic turns but it is not for the 3;000-5;700 NM routes we typically fly internationally.
A widebody cargo Captain explains that his Company provides insufficient and non FAR compliant enroute weather briefing data on extended Middle Eastern and Asian trips where access to computers products for additional weather information may be nonexistent.