In 2013 FAA Safety Briefing magazine published a seemingly unremarkable story about a mindless runway incursion in a light piston twin. Human error. Could have been bad, but like most incidents, no big deal. What’s interesting is the author. He was a master pilot. The byline is Gene Cernan, fighter pilot, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, Moonwalker, and general aviation pilot. And I just heard the real story on how he got to write his confessional article.
Listening to the Flight Safety Detectives podcast #56 the hosts, former NTSB investigators John Goglia and Greg Feith talk with former JetBlue safety VP and former FAA Director of Flight Standards John Allen. It’s a friendly free-wheeling discussion. One of the topics was crime and punishment, how John felt FAA lawyers were wasting time on pilots who made errors rather than concentrating on the true violators. The goal should be learning from all our innocent mistakes, while still removing the few true criminals. And he slipped in an amazing example.
After a runway incursion, the mighty FAA wheels of legal jeopardy were turning against the ‘last man to walk on the Moon’. John proposed another solution. If Gene would write an ‘it happened to me it could happen to you’ article for their magazine, the legal proceeding would be dropped. Better for Gene, cheaper for the FAA, and better for flight safety. Gene said yes.
No matter who we are, where we have been, how many hours or landings we may have, or how good we may think we are, we all are prone to the inevitability of making a mistake.
So now you know the real backstory, enjoy these words of wisdom from the master aviator:
When we are the pilot-in-command of an aircraft, whether in the air or on the ground, being merely “good” is not good enough.