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New NTSB Safety Briefing

By Dave English

The NTSB recently released a Safety Briefing applicable to all pilots. It details several recent mid-air collisions that maybe could have be avoided if the pilots had seen the other aircraft coming. All were in good day VFR conditions. There’s no indication that these pilots were looking at iPads at the time, but I think we all know how captivating PEDs can be in a ‘nothing happening’ quiet cockpit. And a recent accident was blamed on the pilot taking selfies in flight. See and be seen is an ancient seamanship skill. We must not lose it now.

New brain science on expert intuition

By Dave English

New brain science shows where expert intuition quickly silently processes information. It’s where master pilots ‘simply’ look outside and see the wind, feel the wing, and just land. It appears that the site of fast, automatic, unconscious cognitive operations—from where a solution materializes all of a sudden—lies in the basal ganglia, linked to but apart from the cortex. These studies provide a telling hint of what happens when the brain brings the output of unconscious processing into awareness. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/intuition-may-reveal-where-expertise-resides-in-the-brain/ In the instant before he drove Kuang’s sting through the base of the first tower, he attained a level of proficiency … Continue reading New brain science on expert intuition

We are the grease in the cogs

By Dave English

Powerful four minute video by professor and pilot Sidney Dekker introduces what we find when we stop looking at accidents, and instead study highly reliable organizations. It’s resilience: the ability to accommodate change and absorb disturbances without catastrophic failure. And it’s not about reducing negatives, but rather promoting positives. The four behaviors that resilient teams practice are: Don’t take past success as a guarantee of future safety. Keep a discussion of risk alive even when everything looks safe. Bring in different and fresh perspectives. Invite doubt, stay curious and openminded. Invest in safety when others say no. We are not error … Continue reading We are the grease in the cogs

We are responsible …

By Dave English

“We are responsible for the incident and its consequences.” ~ Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman on the fatal Philadelphia derailment. Whatever the engineer’s actions in speeding into the curve, it’s refreshingto see a CEO actually take responsibility for a crash. System Safety and Just Culture moving beyond the safety dept? (Guardian newspaper story 2 June 2015.)  

NTSB on lessons learned from UPS 1354

By Dave English

“I ask that we pilots recommit to standardization. In 2015, one of the NTSB’s Most Wanted List priorities is to Strengthen Procedural Compliance. This means: follow your SOPs. If you think one of your procedures is inappropriate or unwise, ask your company to consider changing it, but until they do, follow it and potentially avoid a catastrophic incident.” ~ Roger Cox, Senior Aviation Safety Investigator, NTSB, writing on the lessons of the UPS 1354 crash. Blog post on 1 June 2015.