Right Seat

Flying is as safe as you want it to be. This should be the answer to the inevitable question we all ask when we first get involved in aviation.

Admittedly, that answer is as much a cop-out as it is accurate. There are statistics that could prove the case that we’re generally safe, and those that could say we have a lot of work to do as a community. Which is to say the statistics don’t matter. What matters is you, the pilot.

We’re all guilty in this activity of a bit of fear mongering. I wish I could say Flight Training is immune to talking at length about accidents, “what ifs,” and other thinly veiled references to death, but we’re not. So it’s understandable that nonpilots just assume flying is a savagely dangerous activity where any wrong move punches the Direct-To button to Six Feet Under Regional. The reality is a much more complicated picture that almost always comes back to the pilot and his or her decisions. Those pilots who approach flying with the right mindset can reduce the risk to a standard their mothers would approve of. Or you could treat it like a 150-mph motorcyclist and get the same, inevitable road rash. For new pilots the difficulty is in figuring out precisely how to reduce that risk.

It’s clear that if we’re smart, plan ahead, and don’t attempt to fly in conditions beyond our ability, we will be just fine. This month we feature a story about different ways one can approach this process in “Many Tools, One Box,” on page 32. It’s a story I wish I could have read when I first started flying. It certainly would have saved me from learning a lesson or two the hard way. The piece covers something I’ve come to use on a consistent basis, even though I don’t usually approach it in the systematic way presented in the article.

The concept of the accident chain—the idea that accidents are the result of a bunch of otherwise unrelated little actions that link together—has always been very powerful to me. It’s probably for that reason that I now make decisions based on a catalog of evidence weighed against my current abilities (not certificated privileges). A recent trip to visit family in New York is a great example. The weather varied between 600 feet and 200 feet overcast at the departure airport. I was trying to beat a line of rain. The XM datalink weather wasn’t working, and I was with my family. And I really wanted to get home. On the ability side, I had completed an instrument proficiency check three days prior, was familiar with the airport and the airplane, and have a moderate amount of experience in the conditions. I began linking the chain, and making the decision to stay was easy.

We talk about personal minimums as though they are obvious and set in stone, but that’s rarely the case. What’s more practical is that you’ll weigh all the factors against your ability at that moment. Risk versus reward is a common tactic in life, and it works surprisingly well in flying too.