In this corner . . .
Every flight is a fight! Human Error be old and out of shape, but never count him out.
Every flight is a fight! Human Error be old and out of shape, but never count him out.
Overheard from my third-grader’s zoom classroom — “Put your eye’s here Alex”. Very clear directions from an experienced elementary school teacher. A teacher who knows if you’re not looking at the words, you’re not reading the assignment. So simple. But very powerful for him, and me. Because last night I read in the excellent 2019 book Controlling Risk: Thirty Techniques for Operating Excellence, by five-time Shuttle commander Jim Wetherbee, of the same idea. When he was a Navy A-7 pilot there were several crashes caused by computer limitations that forced pilots to manually enter navigation coordinates while flying close to … Continue reading Put your eyes here
I live in Phoenix, Arizona. So the picture isn’t of English stinging nettles, but the top of a big prickly saguaro cactus. However, Shakespeare’s line from 1591 still rings true today: “’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.”
“We must remember that the sea is no respector of ships or persons. The sea is always ready, at the first sign of failure, to rush in and destroy the very craft it so readily supports upon the surface of the water. The sea is only safe and harmless so long as the ship is safe and seaworthy and ably handled.” Felix Riesenberg, Standard Seamanship for the Merchant Service, 1922.
The senior FO I flew with yesterday had a great acronym for what’s important to protect, and in what order, when flying: A Arse. T Ticket. P Paycheck. Keep me safe, keep me legal, and keep me employed. Sounds about right! And actually kinda follows our official flight standards priority philosophy of: 1 Safe. 2 Legal. 3 SOP. .