High Rates of Climb or Descent

Article Information
Category:	Safety Nets
Content source:	SKYbrary
Content control:	EUROCONTROL

Description

Modern aircraft design permits very high rates of climb or descent. High climb rates are desirable for noise abatement purposes. High climb and descent rates allow a more flexible use of airspace.

Effects

A high rate of climb or descent can trigger operationally unecessarry "nuisance" ACAS RAs.

A high rate of descent during an approach to land

Defences

Well designed SOPs should prevent avoidable interruptions and distractions, for example, the sterile cockpit procedure employed by many airlines reduces distractions and interruptions during high-workload situations.

Contributory Factors

• Equipment malfunction or failure.

• ATCO position design;

• Poor Team Resource Management (TRM);

• Inadequate SOPs.

Solutions

• Review and if necessary improve SOPs;

• Insist that SOPs are followed.

• Review and if necessary improve the design of the ATCO’s position;

• Review and if necessary improve CRM and TRM training provisions.