Crew resource management
CRM is the set of non-technical crew skills that make a multi-crew flight deck work: communication, leadership and teamwork, decision making, workload management, and related behaviours that keep technical skill effective under operational pressure. Historically trained as a separate subject, CRM content is now absorbed into the pilot core competencies. The label still matters for instructors because LOFT design, debrief language, and facilitation rubrics still speak in CRM terms.
What CRM is for
Accident and incident patterns show that many failures are not pure handling or pure systems faults. They cluster as poor group decision making, ineffective communication, inadequate leadership, and weak flight-deck management. CRM training builds countermeasures: speak up, share the mental model, manage load, use all available resources (crew, automation, ATC, company, procedures).
The Risk Management Model states the point as three identical golden rules: Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Assessment without communication is private and useless to the crew; the single load-bearing failure mode is correct private assessment that never reaches the rest of the crew in time.
From separate topic to competency frame
Doc 9995 and Doc 9868 (Amendment 7 lineage) treat CRM as no longer trained only in isolation. Pilot competencies encompass what were once labelled technical and non-technical knowledge, skills, and attitudes. CRM skills are embedded in the adapted competency model: competencies are individual and team countermeasures to threats, errors, and undesired aircraft states under TEM.
In EBT grading practice: labelling skills technical versus non-technical is an unnecessary complication for grading. Graders still need CRM vocabulary in LOFT debriefs and facilitation assessment (analyse along CRM dimensions, discuss CRM techniques used or available), but the grade lands on COM, LTW, PSD, SAW, and WLM.
Where CRM is trained and assessed
| Setting | CRM role |
|---|---|
| Classroom / recurrent CRM module | Awareness, models, language (e.g. decision frameworks) |
| LOFT | Put CRM into practice in a real-time line environment (non-jeopardy) |
| EBT evaluation and scenario phases | Competencies graded as TEM countermeasures in line-oriented scenarios |
| Line operations | Daily exercise of the same behaviours. LOSA and reporting feed the evidence base |
CRM courses build awareness; LOFT is where crews must apply the principles. Facilitation-centred debrief (crew-led analysis, instructor as resource) is the standard learning method because attitude and interpersonal skill change poorly under pure lecture.
Instructor use
- In LOFT brief and debrief, reset roles: trainees own the agenda and talk to each other; instructor facilitates and resources.
- Keep LOFT introduction non-technical enough that systems Q&A does not steal the CRM focus.
- When grading EBT, map CRM observations to competency codes and observable behaviours; do not invent a parallel CRM scorecard that fights the competency system.
- Use the Risk Management Model (risk potential versus resources, closed by communication) as a whiteboard scaffold for crew analysis.
- Model assertive, not aggressive or submissive, interpersonal behaviour; behaviour breeds behaviour.
- In classroom CRM modules, still apply set, questioning, and closure craft; lecture alone does not change attitude.
Connections
- Threat and error management. Operational frame competencies sit inside; threats and errors are what CRM counters.
- Core competencies. Where CRM content is graded in EBT.
- Line-oriented flight training. Primary practical training vehicle for CRM application.
- Risk management model. Compact communicate-centred scaffold for crew risk talk.
- Just culture. Climate required for honest CRM debrief and reporting.
- Facilitation. Default debrief technique for CRM learning.
- C-A-L model. line-oriented simulation (LOS) debrief structure (CRM, analysis, line operations).
- Pilot flying and pilot monitoring. Task sharing is CRM in hardware-and-SOP form.
- Human behaviour in flight training. Climate and behaviour breeding that make CRM training land or fail.
- Questioning technique. Debrief and classroom craft for surfacing CRM decisions.
- Evaluation cycle. Criterion-referenced grading of CRM-as-competency, not vibe scores.
Sources
- 5.1 Introduction. Communicate golden rules; risk management model (RMM) as CRM risk scaffold.
- 6.7 LOFT Briefing - Suggested Format and Contents. LOFT as practical CRM training; non-jeopardy contract.
- 7.5 LOFT Debriefing - Introduction. Crew-centred CRM debrief introduction and golden rules.
- A4.1.6 Competencies. Collapse of technical / non-technical split; competencies embedded in TEM.
- A4.D Core Competencies. Competency lineage from CAP 737 behavioural markers including CRM content.
- Doc 9995, App 1 (Design principles for an evidence-bas…). CRM absorbed into pilot competencies as TEM countermeasures.