Aero-Tips!
A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard
this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer
statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of
"there are no old, bold pilots.")
Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner,
master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us
-- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators. Some of them, you
may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be
something we might never have considered before, or something that
didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized
it for the practical test.
Look for our daily Aero-Tips segments, coming each day to you
through the Aero-News Network.
Aero-Tips 10.08.06
For a few years I was
safety director for a highway construction company. Between
business flights I had many other duties, among them working with
the company's insurance carriers. From this I learned of a
construction-industry study that has clear implications for
aviation safety.
Our insurance agent told me detailed observation of heavy
equipment operators showed that, on average, operators perform
identifiable unsafe acts an average of 600 times for every time one
causes an accident. Sometimes the "accident" happens on the
first occurrence, sometimes it never happens. An accident
might be minor, or it may be deadly. Often it's impossible to
predict the severity of the mishap that results.
You don't want to have a day when you hit unsafe act number
601.
Consider the operator who habitually jumps down from a motor
grader's cab instead of climbing down the ladder-an unsafe
act. Most times he jumps, lands and walks away. But if
he lands wrong he may sprain an ankle or break a leg. If he
falls over on landing he might bang his head on a rock and
die. Minor contributing factors…and sheer
luck…can generate the outcome.
Pilots As Operators
Like skilled equipment operators, pilots use complex equipment
for highly technical tasks, often in a demanding environment.
It's not too much of a stretch to infer that pilots, too, perform
unsafe acts many, many times before everything comes together to
cause an accident. Mistake or deliberate action, it's often
luck that alone determines if and when there's a mishap, and its
severity.
Pilots likely make hundreds of mistakes for every time one leads
to a mishap. Sometimes they deliberately do things that are
blatantly unsafe and still get away with it. You definitely
don't want to be flying when you reach unsafe act #601.
Complacency
Further, repeatedly doing something unsafe…and getting
away with it unscathed…tends to validate the bad
behavior. For instance, the pilot who nervously scud-runs and
makes it to destination anyway may decide it's not that dangerous
after all, and fly more and more trips in worse and worse weather
because "nothing bad ever happens". He/she becomes the "Ace
of the base", the pilot who can fly through anything. If the
pilot is lucky, this complacency won't kill anyone. If usual
operator patterns exist, however, any one flight could be the
pilot's last.
Aero-Tip Of The Day: Of course a mishap
won't happen precisely on the 601st time you do
something. Bad things may never happen…or they may
happen the very first time. Work to eliminate bad habits
before you find yourself on a "Flight #601."