Training Tip: Not-so-great expectations
The approach control frequency is super congested today, so as you return to the towered airport from a practice flight, you take pride in knowing that your growing familiarity with departure and arrival operations will help you anticipate the instructions you will receive.
As expected, air traffic control calls your number at five miles out and issues instructions for your traffic-pattern entry—but the transmission gets “stepped on” just enough for you to be unsure what you heard.
Unfortunately, those were not the instructions that were issued today—and what happens next in such scenarios is a direct consequence of whether there is opposing traffic close by, whether ATC quickly realizes that a miscommunication has occurred, or whether your own situational awareness alerts you to the fact that you are not where you belong in the general flow of airport-area traffic.
Don’t let such a dust-up shake your confidence; sometimes learning is a case of two steps forward, one step back. It’s true that you reached a major milestone of learning to fly when you acquired the ability to anticipate what ATC is likely to ask you to do next, so the pat on the back your instructor gave you for rising to that level still counts.
Expectation isn’t certainty, however, and any doubt requires immediate clarification, even on a busy frequency.
Fail to confirm the clearance and you can fall prey to a phenomenon described by the term “expectation bias” (sometimes rendered as confirmation bias).
Be conversant with the concept; it appears in the airman certification standards for private pilot applicants as a risk-management element of several tasks involving communications and complying with taxi instructions.
And for good reason. “Hearing what we expect to hear is frequently listed as a causal factor for pilot deviations that occur both on the ground and in the air,” noted the FAA Safety Team, addressing the issue in 2012.
Expectation bias “often affects the verbal transmission of information,” it added, noting that “if something doesn’t make sense (incorrect call sign, runway assignment, altitude, etc.)—then query the controller about it.”
Remember, getting the same taxi or pattern-entry instructions every day this week is no guarantee that you’ll get them again tomorrow. Stay alert, avoid an incursion.
What were the most unexpected ATC instructions you ever received? Share the story at AOPAHangar.com.
Dan Namowitz
