First, there's a political and a psychological backdrop to all of this. When bad things happen to good aircraft (or people) we can't chalk it up to innocence. Partly demographic in origin, and partly due to the sheer volume of required knowledge and the bureaucracy needed to regulate and support it, the entire aviation industry has come to overemphasize two of the four components of airmanship - namely skill and knowledge - at the expense of the other two, which are judgment and experience. (This problem isn't just in our aeronautical back yards, either. Over the past few years, the increased flow of pilots up the career ladder has left less time for an apprenticeship under a seasoned pro.)
And then there are the politics of safety: Aviation educator John King himself has called upon the entire flight training industry to better acknowledge risk, expose students to a wider range of "anticipatory" situations requiring risk management skills, and increase the emphasis on flexibility for decision-making. As for the psychology, we all know that attributes of the flight environment such as adventure, command, and freedom also contain the potential to turn our own traits against us. We must know when not to press, show off, or abuse those freedoms.
To be fair, the FAA certainly hasn't ignored the forest for the trees - or in this case, overlooked all windows of vulnerability. Inexperience can be especially hazardous in the realm of instrument flight. Before 1986, regulations required pilots to have 200 hours before being allowed to take the instrument checkride. Based on a 1974 study, it was dropped to 125, and now, there's no total time minimum (although pilots still must have 50 hours of cross-country pilot-in-command time before taking the instrument checkride). You might think they would want pilots to get a little more experience under their belts before making forays into scuzzy weather, rather than less. The FAA realized, however, that reducing exposure in that dangerous window of building time between the private checkride and the start of instrument training, where confidence often exceeds ability and judgments related to weather lack the benefit of experience, would be an improvement. The premise here is that instrument training would be safer than unsupervised VFR flight. And it was right.
The AOPA Air Safety Foundation's 2001 Nall Report reminds us that in addition to experience, proficiency, equipment, and flight conditions all have an impact on safety. Also, the same primary causes continue to appear in accident reports, and some of these - such as fuel mismanagement, spatial disorientation, or VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) - definitely don't discriminate against neophytes. Simply transitioning to a new aircraft type can cause trouble. Nevertheless, there are valuable lessons that we can learn from Craig's analyses of these data, which show that significantly greater proportions of certain types of accidents continue to befall pilots having experience levels within such "zones."
It doesn't take heightened powers of observation to see how pilots - old as well as new - can fall from grace. Roughly three-quarters of weather-related accidents are fatal, and many of those are VFR-into-IMC (often followed by disorientation), so we need to understand how the inner ear works, the vulnerabilities of gyro and pitotstatic systems, and situations conducive to the formation of fog and haze. To avoid accidents in the realm of maneuvering flight, we need to better understand aerodynamic forces and fly responsibly.
If we paid better attention to airplane configuration, performance data, crosswind and short- or soft-field takeoff techniques, and density altitude, we could avoid many takeoff and climb accidents. And if we increased our proficiency in stabilized approaches, crosswind and short-field landings, dealing with turbulence, or our understanding of carburetor design - and if we were better prepared for landing at unfamiliar airports, for example - we would have fewer approach and landing accidents.
The fact that accidents involving takeoffs and landings occur more than 10 times more frequently than the amount of flight time these activities comprise isn't surprising when you consider that this is where workload is greatest. The least dangerous types of accidents (which result in minor injuries and damage, such as during landing) are usually skill-related, and the most dangerous types, such as weather and maneuvering - and which often result in fatalities - are more decision-related. Now that says something: Don't just learn the right skills; learn to make the right decisions! But these four areas - maneuvering flight, takeoff and climb, weather, and descent and approach - represented the top four areas in which fatal accidents occurred in both single-engine fixed-gear and retractable-gear aircraft, according to this latest Nall Report.
Another danger area in which the FAA has recently increased its attention is runway incursions. As pilots, we must avoid a "flight only" mind set and taxi defensively; we should ask directions via progressive taxi, as well as use airport diagrams; and we should not hesitate to question or challenge any ATC clearance that we do not understand (or agree with). Midair collisions could be reduced if we all spent more time looking outside the cockpit, exercised greater courtesy, and applied the "sterile cockpit" principle near airports. Fuel mismanagement accidents, an area in which the errors aren't so much skill-related as procedural, would abate considerably if everyone adopted a "guilty until proven innocent" approach to fueling operations concerning quantity on board, sampling, and thorough knowledge of fuel subsystems. And everyone should remember that although flight may literally broaden our perspectives on the world below us, it is usually a mistake to use an aircraft to escape our problems, because they'll always come along for the ride.
Night flight over water, desert, farmland, or other featureless terrain (especially beneath an overcast) can be just like flight in instrument meteorological conditions. Some countries require a "night" rating, endorsements, more training, or have made night VFR flight illegal. The message here is to use more stringent personal minimums based on experience, proficiency, and one's own level of comfort, rather than just complying with the regulations. Above all, get an instrument rating; IFR pilots are involved in fewer accidents.
That said, although getting any advanced certificate or rating encourages a safety mind set, the IFR world is a bigger step in terms of both accountability and work load, and it is crucial to remember to immerse oneself in it gradually. Once you have an instrument rating, go/no-go decisions become less clear, and newly rated IFR pilots can be tempted to fly beyond (or more appropriately, below) their capabilities. Barry Schiff has suggested an introductory "IFR procedures" certificate to allow pilots to first learn IFR procedures while in visual conditions before dealing with the additional workload of aircraft control. I think that it is a good idea. Rust still happens, although for IFR pilots the danger zone occurs a bit later (where half of the IFR pilot fatal accidents occur between 250 and 550 hours).
Whether you're rated for VFR or IFR flight, the issues of currency and proficiency are critical. The tasks with the greatest skill loss over time include short-field and crosswind takeoffs and landings, traffic pattern operations, turns, and VOR tracking. Paul Craig coined the phenomenon of "creeping normalcy" in reference to this. It refers to the progressive lowering of task standards over time until they are below generally acceptable levels. (It's no coincidence that the items targeted in the three hours of the FAA's Wings pilot proficiency program, what I call "air work, pattern work, and hood work," are precisely those items most involved in accidents.)
So what else can we do to run this gauntlet and emerge unscathed? True to the motto of this very magazine, that "a good pilot is always learning," we must resolve to become life-long learners. Try to make each flight count. Fly with a CFI more often; chase out those cobwebs. Combine that with some real-world decision-making experience regarding weather. Consider that relatively little flight instruction is devoted to cross-country flying, where our weather decisions are made. Pilots learn about weather, but not how to apply that knowledge. Craig advises pilots to start a "five year plan" to acquire new certificates or ratings and thus ensure a goal-directed improvement of our flying abilities and knowledge. One thing I would advise is the easiest of all: Just think more about flying. Reflect upon each flight you make. After all, experience isn't just what happens to you; it's what you think about what happens to you (and what you've done, of course).
A week after I got my own private pilot certificate, an older pilot told me, "You know, you're as good now as you'll ever be." I wrote about such "motivation by implication" ("A Little Secret," December 2000 AOPA Flight Training). At first, I was offended, and then, I realized that the best thing I could do - the best we can all do - is to take that statement as a challenge.
Jeff Pardo is an aviation writer in Maryland with a commercial pilot certificate for airplanes, and instrument, helicopter, and glider ratings. He has logged about 1,100 hours in 12 years of flying. An AirLifeLine mission pilot, Pardo also has flown for the Civil Air Patrol.
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