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Why The Chinese ‘Punishment Culture’ Is At Odds With Modern Aviation Safety
Any modern-day Pilot who’s flown for a Chinese airline knows how obsessed Chinese culture is with ‘Punishment.’ No doubt they have also been subjected to the vast array of punitive measures imposed on them personally, not only for the mistakes of others but for external events totally out of their control. As a result, Aviation Safety is being compromised on a daily basis in the cockpits of Chinese airliners, sometimes severely, and it needs to be addressed before it causes another major accident.
‘Just Culture’ vs ‘Blame And Just Punish Them’ Culture.
Most successful airlines in the world have by now adopted the use of ” Just Culture.”
In an organizational;
‘JUST CULTURE,’ after an incident, the question asked is, “What went wrong?” rather than “Who caused the problem?” A just culture helps create an environment where individuals feel free to report unintentional errors and helps the organization to learn from mistakes.
Makes sense right? – especially in aviation with error-prone humans ( normal humans) flying complex modern aircraft repetitively in complex and potentially dangerous environments. Best learn what mistakes may have – and could again cause real issues – and go out of the way to prevent them – right from the root cause. ( Fatigue? Rostering? Time pressure? What – let’s fix this! )
The Chinese have been left behind – still implementing their hierarchal and archaic – totally opposite;
‘JUST PUNISH THEM’ Culture: Individual persons are fined, punished, or even fired – for making ANY mistakes or even just being there – (and hence ‘involved’) in any incident. The root underlying causes leading to the error are generally not investigated and corrected.
Punishment culture is simply a totally flawed and unworkable system in regard to enhancing safety within a large airline organization.
Not only that, – the flawed Chinese cultural system of punishment for every mistake made – goes right up the organizational tree to the top ( Fleet manager) every single time.
Shitty weather and a marginally ‘heavy landing’ occurs in Vancouver (slightly above an arbitrary ‘g-force’ limit with zero operational consequence)… a few hours later the B777 fleet manager wakes up in Guangzhou to the news that he has been fined a bunch of yuan for not preventing it, with a safety meeting to follow. Great system – works well – NOT!.
Financial penalties are first and foremost. The Chinese love money more than themselves. As a result: in the interest of self-preservation of cushy, privileged position – and just as importantly bank balance – hard-line bullying occurs from the top-down –
“Make No Mistakes!!! – OR ELSE!”
A plethora of – often absurd – rules are imposed at every management level in an attempt to protect each position from rude awakenings, accountability, and punishment.
Seriously Dangerous Practices Are Encouraged – JUST TO PREVENT Punishment Of Managers.
As an example, in the ‘Heavy landings’ scenario above – on Boeing fleets Chinese pilots are actively encouraged to intervene – and ‘fiddle’ with the controls even if they’re just the non-flying pilot – at any point and even a few feet off the ground – to prevent punishment from ‘hard landings’ at all cost!’ 😳😳!!! – If you are an experienced non – Chinese pilot – hearing promotion of such inherently dangerous procedures is dumbfounding, to say the least. So dangerous is this concept of two pilots controlling the aircraft below a few hundred feet, Airbus aircraft have installed automated very loud – digi-voice warning “DUEL INPUT – DUEL INPUT” to prevent it at all costs! This is where Chinese aviation is at…
Often the punishment is way way over and above reasonable – weeks or a month with no pay, and required to do ‘office duties’ – in a ridiculous attempt to prevent any minor mistakes working their way back up the tree. If an aircraft is hit by lightning – of course not intentionally and it harmlessly happens every day in aviation – the pilots flying, can expect up to one month in the office with zero pay and studying weather maps – [coz that will make a difference!🤣.]
{ Picture it – just like a couple of school kids doing detention, the 20,000 hours of experience, 58-year-old Captain, (usually foreign because blame has been corruptly redirected to him) and First Officer, all dressed up in their smart uniforms, sitting in the manager’s office with books open for all to see as a bad ‘examples’ TRUE TALK! This happens regularly!}
The Chinese F/O – whose pay is minuscule compared to western airlines, most likely won’t be able to pay for his kid’s school fees that month. 👍👍 Yeah, that will solve it! 🙄 Counterproductlively, cover-ups and cover-up culture result – and have become – systematic.
In the Airline environment – the Chinese need to accept that we are human – and will ALWAYS make mistakes. If the ‘SOPs’ ( such as checklists, and standard procedures put in place to mitigate errors ) are deliberately disregarded – OK punishment is in order – no one will argue with that. On the other hand – to incite a dreadful fear of punishment – even for making an innocent, unpremeditated mistake – has enormous unintended – sometimes dire – consequences in aviation.
Driven from the regulator (CAAC) down, the VERY FEAR of punishment, its associated serious loss of face, reduced promotion prospects, and above all loss of income, – actually CAUSES improperly prioritized and additionally incorrect and dangerous procedures to be implemented.
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‘Fear of Punishment [FOP]‘ – causes Dangerous Procedures
THIS IS THE HEART OF THE TRULY DANGEROUS SAFETY PROBLEM – that now exists in most Chinese Airlines…
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Let’s Look At Some More Specific Examples:
HARD LANDINGS
As already discussed in part, probably the most common and dangerous ‘Fear of punishment’ [FOP] resultant procedures is the avoidance of ‘hard (or heavy) landings.’ The CAAC is obsessed with them, and in turn every manager at every level in every Chinese airline. It’s as though it’s part of a hard-line religious cult – based on no science – that hard landings must be avoided or face wrath of the dragon!
No one has died in modern aviation history from a hard landing. ‘Firm’ landings are recommended by Boeing in strong crosswind and wet conditions. Modern aircraft are incredibly strong, and for a landing above a certain manufacturer’s limit, usually engineers must do a quick visual inspection then the aircraft resumes normal operation. More serious inspections are necessary before return to service after extreme limit exceedances, but achieving such is very uncommon and extremely unlikely.
Two pilots on the controls both desperately pulling back in unison at the last minute to avert the disastrous ensuing financial pain of a ‘hard landing’ [FOP] – is the perfect recipe for a whopping tailstrike on landing.
People HAVE died recently, however, with severe tail strikes on landing – ( SanFrancisco B777 a few years ago where the tail the slammed into the seawall. This accident was not actually caused by a simple tailstrike, but it shows what will happen to an aircraft if the tail slams into the ground with force.) Two pilots on the controls both desperately pulling back in unison at the last minute to avert the disastrous ensuing financial pain of a ‘hard landing’ [FOP] – is the perfect recipe for a whopping tailstrike on landing. It’s a miracle Chinese airlines aren’t having one a week with the current culture in place. If you are a pilot about to start working in China – start the flare around 50′ ( yes ridiculous! – 50′ feet) – otherwise old mate next to you will either die of a heart attack or be yanking for his life a nanosecond later. (The official Boeing B777 flight manual suggests starting the flare at 30 feet)
CLOUD AND HEAVY RAIN (THUNDERSTORM) AVOIDANCE
The next most common fear-induced danger lies in the desperate avoidance of cloud and heavy rain – misunderstood to be thunderstorms and those ‘Punishable -by -near-death [FOP] Lighting Strikes’.
{Thunderstorms (TS) are dangerous – and require avoiding – with massive down and updrafts that can rip an aircraft apart. They need cumulus activity – and massive bubbly CB clouds that generally grow into the high 30 /40/50 0000 ft. Basic meteorological knowledge tells any pilot that a flat top of stratus cloud < 10,000′ poses zero danger to modern aircraft in terms of TS. (Icing may be a concern but aircraft have sophisticated systems to mitigate.) Aircraft radars pick up moisture associated with the intense part of the storms, red color means danger when in a TS cloud. Heavy rain with no storms will also cause red.}
...red color means danger when in a TS cloud. Heavy rain with no storms will also cause red (no threat) – especially if the radar sensitivity selected is too high.
While observing on the flight deck I personally witnessed a Chinese Captain – so fearful of punishment (not of actually being hit by lightning) – deliberately disobey ATC heading instructions at the world’s busiest airport – Chicago. Instead of following in line – 8 other preceding aircraft in the flow – he turned 45 degrees OFF to avoid some ‘red color’ on his radar – that the other aircraft were all happily flying through with zero problems. His crew just obeyed without question, fearful of his feedback and also no doubt of the (impossible) lightning strike. [FOP] You can imagine the Chicago approach controllers ensuing heart attack. A rogue Red B777 just doing its own thing plowing through the world’s busiest airspace randomly! Complete misguided paranoid focus on ‘ Will not be punished!’ Never mind that no cloud was above 10,000′ and thunderstorms did not exist at all in the area – just rain. Never mind that he could see 8 aircraft ahead were successfully flying in the area of red with no reports of turbulence even.
His misguided actions were lucky NOT to cause catastrophic results – all brought about by the irrational fear of being punished! [FOP]
All airlines divert around TS, but Chinese aircraft deviate hundreds of miles more off-track, – irrationally so – to avoid the slightest chance of a punishable lightning strike. [FOP] This often causes even more problems – fuel requirements can be compromised, anxiety levels rise, more mistakes are likely.
{Sometimes an aircraft comes into port with a Chinese manager who has flown and knows he’s had a lightning strike. He will do almost anything to prevent the punitive result.[FOP] If early on a long flight he will probably arrange that a junior – or better still foreign Capt takes over for the next leg, then do his utmost to get the engineer NOT to see its evidence (small burn hole) on the walk around. At the next port, however, the engineer will find and report it, – and the foreigner will cop the punishment… Safety compromised – no proper inspection – all to avoid punishment[FOP] }
FEAR OF BEING LATE – FATIGUE RISK MANAGEMENT THROWN OUT THE WINDOW
Any Chinese manager will insist that “Professional pilots are on time!!”
Yep – sure – and worldwide in every outfit they almost always are – unless the car breaks down or some unforeseen, unlikely but not impossible – event actually occurs. The middle managers in China, to make themselves look better, and pretty much so as to NEVER have to answer to those above them for a delayed flight due crewing [FOP], make sign-on times for crews ridiculously – insanely – early.
For an already 17 hour day planned duty time to New York from Canton, in times of ‘dangerous operations’ ( eg thunderstorms en route – aka every day normal ops) – 3 hours prior to departure the crews must report to the office and sign on via computer. THREE HOURS! – and don’t be late or else![FOP] – It’s like it’s the space mission to Mars!. Most airline crews have ample time for a coffee, and some quick duty-free shopping – with a report time of 1 just hour.
For those unfamiliar, crew fatigue is one of the biggest contributors to modern aviation accidents and incidents, so to a logical thinker, it seems unimaginable that fatigue risk could be blatantly compromised – just because of [FOP]
The fact that they have just abused serious fatigue safety regulations is totally lost on them…
Managers’ Fear of not being seen to be actively pushing the safety culture’ – actually CAUSES even more dangerous crew fatigue risk…
CAAC duty limits in Chinese airlines have been cut and pasted largely from the FAA in the USA, translated to Chinese, then are constantly and blatantly disregarded.
Chinese managers constantly hold (weekly pretty much) – BS ‘safety meetings’ – to show how ‘ safety diligent’ they are being to their superiors.
With zero regard to duty limits, and fatigue risk management – the already severely overworked F/Os have to attend the ridiculous mind-numbing sleep fests – almost always on their only – duty limit mandated ‘untouchable’- days off … They don’t complain – just do it – because they too don’t want to get punished. Sound familiar? [FOP]. – A group email would achieve far – far more – and not cause the safety issue of falling asleep at the wheel on the way to work to their next mission, let alone in the cruise during it.
A group email would achieve far – far more – and not cause the safety issue of falling asleep at the wheel on the way to work to their next mission, let alone in the cruise during it.
Any Inflight Incident also causes another mandatory Safety Meeting
Everyone will be called in – mandatory regulated days off or not – because someone inserted an incorrect waypoint under ATC instruction – in a total radar environment – in the FMC (flight management computer) over Europe. It’s a mistake sure – but no big deal – they know where you are exactly, and their computer system will alert if any aircraft deviating dangerously.
The idea that pilots need to get dressed up in their Sunday best and attend an inordinately long-winded meeting with all the serious-faced management big wigs – at the expense of mandatory rest days – even for the direst of events is an absurd breach of safety regulation. As before – an email would suffice, like every other practical outfit, but instead the Chinese must be seen to be doing something to counter every tiny mistake no matter how trivial.
The fact that they have just abused serious fatigue safety regulations is totally lost on them. Forget that! – Must notify everyone immediately to prevent management pay penalties! [FOP].👍👍
FLIGHT PLAN FUEL LOGS NOT BEING FILLED OUT TO PERFECTION.
Generally, airline crews do a quick check of fuel used, fuel remaining, against expected flight plan fuel usage every 30 to 45 minutes, to ensure no fuel leak is present, and fuel remaining is sufficient.
In many Chinese airlines, it’s considered unprofessional – and therefore punishable – if the fuel and time on the computer-generated flight plan aren’t filled out completely for every waypoint on the plan. In some parts of the world, the flight plans have waypoints generated that are only a few minutes flight time apart, so this requirement is simply unnecessary in terms of safety.
Fearful of punishment – Chinese pilots diligently fill in all such waypoint entries regardless. It’s important to them – [FOP] and as a result, the workload increases dramatically. Radio calls and avoidance of immediate weather are missed, important planning and preparation for landing is delayed. Prioritization is an enormous part of safe aviation procedure – but once again, the fear of punishment dangerously compromises it.
INCORRECT ALTITUDE SETTINGS
This is a doozy – because China – is now the ONLY place in the world to be different and arrogantly use the METRIC system of altitude above AND below 10,000 feet. All aircraft are made with altimeters in feet – the rest of the world uses Flight levels in FEET, but not China. They know better.
The result is when given any clearance in Chinese airspace, a chart has to be used to convert it to feet, THEN it can be input to the MCP (Mode/ master control panel) of the aircraft. It’s a recipe for disaster and an eternal source of punishment. You can imagine, in a very high workload avoiding heavy rain[FOP], ( maybe even a real thunderstorm,) trying to manage the fuel log[FOP], struggling to understand the Chinese controllers poor Chinglish, and then given an instruction which must be verified on a handheld chart before setting something totally different in the MCP. Errors are bound to occur – and regularly DO! The Chinese pilots try to mitigate by rote learning to perfection the conversion charts – any new young F/O is considered inadequate if he doesn’t know this instantly off by heart. [FOP]
…in a very high workload avoiding heavy rain [FOP], ( maybe even a real thunderstorm,) trying to manage the fuel log [FOP], struggling to understand the Chinese controllers poor Chinglish, and then given an instruction which must be verified on a handheld chart before setting something totally different in the MCP (Mode Control Panel). Errors are bound to occur – and regularly DO!
Problem is, as is human nature, under pressure we all make mistakes more easily. Just at the critical times then, quick time-saving conversions are made, they are wrong, and ATC has mid-air collision avoidance procedures to add to the mix.
Fear of punishment contributes to errors at every level. [FOP]
They learn the charts because they are fearful of the punishment from their leaders if they don’t know them. This, in turn, exacerbates the potential breach of safety. Thankfully modern aircraft have automated ‘TCAS’ avoidance warning systems – hundreds of lives are saved every month by it in Chinese airspace.
Just at the critical times then, quick time-saving conversions are made, they are wrong, and ATC has mid-air collision avoidance procedures to add to the mix.
PUNISHED IF THEY DON’T REPORT BREACHES OF SOPS BY OTHERS.
Good idea in theory, if there were only relevant regulations – but the practical applications are sadly, laughable.
There are so many incredibly trivial – punishable rules handed down in every part of Chinese operations. It’s a wonder crews can concentrate on the actual flying task, when they’re constantly bombarded with irrelevant reasons to fear punishment. At sign-on – company shoes only must be worn ( too bad if they just don’t fit ), the company flashlight must be tested in front of the duty manager – not working – OMG batteries are flat! – punished. [FOP]. (Never mind there are 4 guys with torches on the flight deck, that you may carry spare batteries, or the fact there are dozens of aircraft torches accessible in flight.) Don’t have company bag because it broke at the last minute – punished! [FOP]. Didn’t bring a jacket ( 38 degrees outside and flying to Sydney in the summer) – punished! [FOP].
The only serious application of this is reserved just for foreign crew. Sad but true.
Dob In A Foreigner Policy
Chinese managers must be seen to be managing – and therefore regularly handing out punishment. ‘Special’ F/O’ s are taken aside and tasked with secretly ‘dobbing in a foreigner’ for even the most trivial of ‘punishable offenses’ at every chance. They’re punished if they tell the foreigner that they are anointed as such, and punished if they don’t file a report. Awesome. Not wearing a tie in the cruise – snap – iPhone picture will be on your file within days. ( Even on a freighter aircraft with no passengers!) Looking at the photos of your daughter on your iPad – or put a piece of paper in the top corner of the window to stop being blinded by the sun – sneaky snap – maybe from even from behind. There are also ‘Special flight attendants’ too, similarly tasked to come up and secretly look and report back if a foreign Cpt does anything un ‘SOP.’ Never mind that they often come up to the Flt deck to have a smoke …( a federal offense in every country now ) but that’s different though…🙄
‘Special’ F/O’ s are taken aside and tasked with secretly ‘dobbing in a foreigner’ for even the most trivial of ‘punishable offenses’ at every chance.
Smoking On The Flight Deck.
Chinese aviation still has regular serious safety breaches arising from this habit.
{See Vaping Chinese F/O turned off packs [FOP] and caused depressurization. Oxy mask caught fire from cigarette stub…}
Incredibly- despite pressure from global regulators – the Chinese consider smoking on the deck as their birthright. The rules and indeed laws – are numerous and carry severe punishment if caught, but this is one of the rules that’s ignored pretty much 100%. It’s blatantly condoned by management pilots. Ironically – if a foreign Capt objects and says something to the other Cpt or even a senior FO, it will be filed away and punishment to him will follow. Not the regular endorsed punishment in this case, rather the secret “ We need to show this guy who is boss “ type deal. Perhaps a fail for the next simulator session – and the job is on the line – or some detrimental reports filed – and another punishment ensues whereby more loss of flying – and pay occurs. Ultimately foreign Captains have to either toe the line or be punished with expulsion.[FOP].
Smoking in the cockpit – Ultimately foreign Captains have to either toe the line or be punished with expulsion. [FOP].
QAR POLICE
There are numerous more examples of how the ‘JUST PUNISH THEM’ culture is at odds with aviation safety in China, but the last big one worth mentioning is that of the outright abuse of the QAR ‘Quick Access Recorder’ systems of modern aircraft.
The QAR records every bit of flight data for every flight – and the idea behind it was to see trends – such as early rotations on takeoff, or long landings, that could potentially lead to consistent safety breaches in the future. If trends are identified, the fleet’s crews are informed and mitigation strategies put in place. ‘Just Culture’ airlines ( most ) successfully use this strategy with no punishment to those involved in occasional incidents of QAR readings outside tolerances, recognizing humans as humans and that mistakes occur. ( If an individual pilot consistently caused exceedances on every flight, he may be notified and even retrained if necessary, but not penalized.)
Chinese airlines – LOVE the QAR! – PUNISHMENT OPPORTUNITY CENTRAL! China Southern has an entire building dedicated to QAR data, and an army – like the airline version of the Gestapo, of ‘ QAR police.’
QAR data ‘doesn’t lie’ – so these ‘police’ can prove guilty any pilot trying to cover up [FOP] a mistake – that would normally have caused him to be punished. No excuses! Gotcha!!
The problem is the limits imposed are usually arbitrary to start with – average limits imposed for average conditions. The airlines make the ‘limits.’ Every flight is different, runway length, slope, wind conditions, elevation, temperature, visibility, precipitation, aircraft weight and balance, aircraft unserviceability, birds present, ATC instruction, etc etc etc all contribute to every take-off and landing. There are so many variables it’s impossible to predict exactly what should or shouldn’t occur for a totally ‘safely’ executed maneuver.
Chinese airlines – LOVE the QAR! – PUNISHMENT OPPORTUNITY CENTRAL! China Southern has an entire floor of a building dedicated to QAR data, and an army – like the airline version of the Gestapo, of ‘ QAR police.’
Even Boeing – the manufacturer – recognizes this on the B777 – and in its documents notes that the QAR ‘g- meter’ readings on landing should be used for trend data only, since in certain conditions it may be unreliable and overread.
NEVER MIND ALL THAT! – say the Chinese – If an (arbitrary) limit is busted – especially the landing QAR ‘g meter’ one – punishment will happen! No arguments! 😩
This causes a whole world of safety problems – too long to identify each here – just on its own.
Pilots in China – fearful of consequences – are taught – and learn to fly – to avoid QAR exceedances at the expense of airmanship and safety.[FOP] You can’t blame them, it’s the flawed system – but it’s simply dangerous. On a nice day on short finals, just feet off the ground, as a Captain with the Chinese FO flying you may notice the aircraft drifting across the runway with no correction due to crosswind. You look across and see the guy glued to the instruments inside, fearfully monitoring the vertical speed, and the radar altimeter – this is at less than 50 feet! [FOP] The guy is making sure the ROD ( rate of descent) is within the QAR ‘punishment limit’ for landing – no QAR ‘g’ tolerance exceedance for him![FOP] – Some of them are pretty good at it – Bravo! – except they don’t look outside (a safety requirement) and completely miss the fact they have nearly drifted off the R/W into the grass due to the crosswind.
At least in hospital – if they were extremely lucky – they wouldn’t have to wear their uniform and study the flare maneuver for weeks on end. ☺️ Undoubtedly, however, their pay would still be docked…
‘JUST PUNISH THEM’ Culture Is A DANGEROUS Culture In Aviation.
In the Airline environment – the Chinese need to accept that we are human – and will ALWAYS make mistakes.
If the ‘SOPs’ are deliberately disregarded – OK punishment is in order. On the other hand – to incite a dreadful fear of punishment – even for making an innocent, unpremeditated mistake – has enormous unintended – potentially dire – consequences in aviation.
The above examples of DANGEROUS practice – are just a few of so many caused directly by the fear of punishment in Chinese airlines.
It’s about time China learned that sometimes change is necessary, and that ‘PUNISHMENT CULTURE’ is a DANGEROUS culture in Aviation.
About the Author: The author has over 22000 hours of military and commercial aviation experience mostly in command of large passenger jets. He lives and has flown in Asia for decades and has flown A320’s for Jetstar Pacific Airways in Vietnam and B777’s for China Southern Airlines based in Guangzhou. He is currently a B787 Captain for Qantas Airways, stood down awaiting borders in Australia to reopen.
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