Understanding 'all available information'
Before we begin a flight, we must plan and prepare so that the flight can be conducted safely. As we progress in our initial flight training and then move into other aircraft, our preflight activities become tailored to the particular operation we are conducting. The regulatory responsibility to properly prepare for a flight contemplates that preflight activities will vary--sometimes quite a bit--between pilots and airplanes and environments. Therefore, the federal aviation regulation that requires preflight activities is primarily and intentionally general in its language.
FAR 91.103 is titled "Preflight Action" and its language starts, "Each pilot in command, shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight."
The rule provides specific rules on meeting that preflight action requirement in two identified areas: for flights under instrument flight rules and for flights not in the vicinity of an airport.
We learn early in our pilot training that there are certain things we must do before getting in the airplane to be safe and compliant with the regulation when conducting the flight. We learn to become thoroughly familiar with the route of flight we are planning to take, including the boundaries of airspace and the location of obstructions. We learn to become familiar with the radio communication and navigation frequencies we may need along our route and at our destination to contact air traffic or to obtain updated flight information, as may be needed. We are also taught to contact an FAA flight service station or some other aviation safety data system (such as DUATs) to obtain complete weather information and any other time-critical information that may restrict the operation of our flight and which we may not otherwise be aware of from the current charts and aeronautical publications, usually in the form of a notice to airmen (notam).
Notams are usually communicated to us during our preflight briefings, and this may be our only avenue to obtaining this safety information that could directly affect the manner of our flight. The information in a notam may otherwise be unavailable to us because of the temporary nature of the information, or because of the fact that the information was not available at the time of publication of the current aeronautical chart or Airport/Facility Directory. Guidance provided by the Aeronautical Information Manual notes, "Notam information is that aeronautical information that could affect a pilot's decision to make a flight." It is the pilot's responsibility to seek out notams, so you may need to remind and prompt the flight service station briefer to provide all pertinent notam information.
So you see, there is a rather large regulatory and safety burden placed on the pilot to discover and have fair knowledge of "all available information" concerning a flight, as broad a context as that term may encompass for any given flight. Still, the regulation does not require you to know all that is applicable, just all that is available. The regulation does identify what "all available information" must include, at a minimum, but not to the exclusion of what would otherwise generally apply to your flight.
It's best to document your preflight actions, in case you need to establish the appropriateness of your search and review of information. In some sense of the term, "familiarity" with "all available information" will depend on the particular flight's circumstances.
Kathy Yodice is an attorney with Yodice Associates in Washington, D.C., which provides legal counsel to AOPA and administers AOPA's legal services plan. She is an instrument-rated private pilot.
