All large organizations have procedures. They couldn’t work without them. The vast majority of procedures govern routine tasks, and generally work moderately well, but there are also emergency procedures.
When I was a Navy pilot, many long years ago, I had to learn emergency procedures which detailed what to do in each of the many possible ways in which a complex military aircraft could malfunction… or be caused to malfunction. Knowing these procedures was absolutely necessary, because when an aircraft malfunctions, for whatever reason, a pilot has very little time to react. In one of the more noted recent events, U.S. Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger lost both engines of his A320 due to a bird strike at an altitude of about 3,000 feet. In less than four minutes he and his copilot made a successful water landing on the Hudson, with no loss of life and largely minor injuries. Such emergency procedures are not only useful, but vital, in instructing pilots, or those in other fields, what to do – in situations that are known to be possible and where remedial emergency procedures can be implemented.
But procedures, even emergency procedures, sometimes can’t deal with the situation.
When I was a junior helicopter pilot learning how to become a helicopter aircraft commander of the now antique H-34, a senior lieutenant commander and I were flying over Oahu on our way to Kauai. Sixty-three miles of deep water separate the islands. We were perhaps four or four miles away from the ocean, when the lieutenant commander said, “Something’s not right with the engine.” All the engine read-outs were normal. The sump light [to detect metal] in the oil, a sign that all was not right with the engine, showed nothing was wrong.
The chief mechanic couldn’t hear anything, but the lieutenant commander immediately executed a precautionary emergency landing in a field. Later examination of the engine, once the H-34 was hauled back to base, revealed that the engine was in the early stages of cracking and failing. If the lieutenant commander had followed “procedures,” we likely would have faced engine failure in the middle of the Kauai Channel. As it was, he took a certain amount of flak until the analysis of the engine confirmed his decision. It also saved the aircraft.
I was reminded of this by the recent decision by the acting Navy Secretary, Thomas B. Modly, to remove Captain Brett E. Crozier from command of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, because Captain Crozier sent letters to between twenty and thirty senior officials asking for speedier and more effective measures to protect his crew of almost 5,000 from the rapid spread of coronavirus. Officially, Captain Crozier was relieved for failing to follow official procedures and the chain of command, when he felt that the “chain of command” was failing his crew.
Coronavirus is one of the most contagious diseases on the planet at the moment, and one that has no vaccine and no proven treatment for remediation. Every hour and every day that the “chain of command” dithered over what to do meant more crew members would be infected, given the close quarters aboard any Naval vessel. Speedy action would not only have spared more crew members from the coronavirus, but also would have allowed the Roosevelt to return to duty sooner.
Modly’s action is exactly why the military gets ridiculed for being hide-bound and stupid. Most times, the procedures work just fine, but there are times when they don’t, and it’s time to throw out the procedures. This was one of those times.