{"id":5505,"date":"2026-02-04T14:57:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/?p=5505"},"modified":"2026-02-04T14:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:57:10","slug":"a-very-normal-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"A very normal accident"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SOURCE: <a href=\"https:\/\/competentaviators.com\">www.competentaviators.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious inflight emergency involving an offshore AW139 helicopter that declared a mayday after multiple, interacting failures, including smoke in the cockpit, loss of control inputs, engine overspeed and confusing indications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rather than framing it as an extraordinary event, the author draws on Charles Perrow\u2019s\u00a0<em>Normal Accidents<\/em>\u00a0idea to argue that in highly complex systems like modern aircraft, unexpected interactions between failures are inevitable. Because of the \u201cinteractive complexity\u201d of such systems, no design or risk assessment could anticipate every possible combination of failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thought provoking from both the perspective of Threat and Error Management, and the role of the human in both contributing to, and avoiding or mitigating accidents, the piece concludes that human operators remain essential for managing unanticipated situations, since their ability to react in real time cannot yet be replaced by engineered systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-green-cyan-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/competentaviators.com\/2023\/01\/01\/a-very-normal-accident\/\">Access the full article on www.competentaviators.com &#8211; CLICK HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious inflight emergency after multiple, interacting failures, including smoke in the cockpit, loss of control inputs, engine overspeed and confusing indications. The author looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle &#8216;interactive complexity&#8217; to recover the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":5507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-threat-and-error-management"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle &#039;interactive complexity&#039; to recover the situation.\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle &#039;interactive complexity&#039; to recover the situation.\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The CRM Knowledge Hub\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"705\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"K-HUB\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"K-HUB\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"K-HUB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/60a2e2c68873f253bcb713a022abfe54\"},\"headline\":\"A very normal accident\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\"},\"wordCount\":163,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"CASE STUDIES\",\"THREAT &amp; ERROR MANAGEMENT\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\",\"name\":\"A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle 'interactive complexity' to recover the situation.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg\",\"width\":705,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Portada\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A very normal accident\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/\",\"name\":\"The CRM Knowledge Hub\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The CRM Knowledge Hub\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/cropped-cropped-CRM-K-Hub-Logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/cropped-cropped-CRM-K-Hub-Logo.png\",\"width\":378,\"height\":264,\"caption\":\"The CRM Knowledge Hub\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/crm-knowledge-hub\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/60a2e2c68873f253bcb713a022abfe54\",\"name\":\"K-HUB\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/avatars\/58\/1722105136-bpfull.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/avatars\/58\/1722105136-bpfull.png\",\"caption\":\"K-HUB\"},\"description\":\"The administrator, CRM Knowledge Hub.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.crmknowledgehub.com\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/crm-knowledge-hub\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/author\/k-hub\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub","description":"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle 'interactive complexity' to recover the situation.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub","og_description":"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle 'interactive complexity' to recover the situation.","og_url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/","og_site_name":"The CRM Knowledge Hub","article_published_time":"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":705,"height":370,"url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"K-HUB","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"K-HUB","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/"},"author":{"name":"K-HUB","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/60a2e2c68873f253bcb713a022abfe54"},"headline":"A very normal accident","datePublished":"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00","dateModified":"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/"},"wordCount":163,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg","articleSection":["CASE STUDIES","THREAT &amp; ERROR MANAGEMENT"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/","name":"A very normal accident - The CRM Knowledge Hub","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg","datePublished":"2026-02-04T14:57:06+00:00","dateModified":"2026-02-04T14:57:10+00:00","description":"This article by Alex Pollitt recounts a serious in-flight emergency and looks at how the flight crew were forced to handle 'interactive complexity' to recover the situation.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Houma-accident-2.jpg","width":705,"height":370},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/a-very-normal-accident\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Portada","item":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A very normal accident"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/","name":"The CRM Knowledge Hub","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#organization","name":"The CRM Knowledge Hub","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/cropped-cropped-CRM-K-Hub-Logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/cropped-cropped-CRM-K-Hub-Logo.png","width":378,"height":264,"caption":"The CRM Knowledge Hub"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/crm-knowledge-hub\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/60a2e2c68873f253bcb713a022abfe54","name":"K-HUB","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/avatars\/58\/1722105136-bpfull.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/avatars\/58\/1722105136-bpfull.png","caption":"K-HUB"},"description":"The administrator, CRM Knowledge Hub.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.crmknowledgehub.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/crm-knowledge-hub\/"],"url":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/author\/k-hub\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5508,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505\/revisions\/5508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crmknowledgehub.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}