Crashing and Burning

Years ago, when I was flying regularly, I subscribed to a monthly NTSB safety newsletter that reported the findings of air crash investigations. I wanted to be a better, safer pilot, and hoped to learn something ex tempore - from the mistakes of others- that would help keep me alive.

What I learned was that most problems aren't mechanical, but mental. And that all too often fatal mistakes result from errors of judgment and expectation.

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I was shocked at the number of fatal air accidents among corporate pilots, the total pros who have the safest safety record in the sky, that were precipitated by a single underlying event: their bosses were executives who, with full knowledge and awareness that their flight would penetrate deadly weather conditions, nonetheless wagged angry fingers and informed their pilot employees, "If you won't fly, then there's a hundred pilots waiting in line behind you who will."

With the sad result that pilots with decades of experience, professionals who knew better than to challenge thunderstorms or gamble against severe icing conditions, took off and flew their employers, their employers' families and everyone else on board, to their deaths ... rather than trust their own judgment and experience and choose to stay on the ground.

Saying NO to the boss was too hard. Walking away came with too many unknowns.

Those highly skilled, professional pilots ignored their own judgment and experience ... and lost their lives because the boss either had a dinner reservation in Denver that couldn't be missed, or box seats for the big game in Seattle, or simply didn't feel like spending another night in a hotel away from home. But that's what the boss wanted; that's what the boss expected.

You wonder how disasters happen, or maybe how priorities become so confused.

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Studying a hazardous weather forecast at an airport in the safety of a pilot's lounge, even in the shadow of a tornado or the lightning flash of a thunderstorm, those pilots somehow still lost focus beyond Just shut up and do whatever it takes to keep your job ... it won't be that bad ...and you'll probably be OK.

They kept their careers intact ... and lost their lives in the process.

Because saying No to the boss was too hard.