Comments on: The Passenger Conundrum

By: Luca Guidoni

Luca Guidoni — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 03:31:46 +0000

This article raises a very important point, and one that plagues me every time I invite a friend for a 100$ hamburger or get asked by one to take them flying. Having earned my PPL less than a year ago, i know that experience is working against me in this, and for this reason tend to be ultra conservative with passengers on board. I think that regulation is not the solution for this particular problem, which can be addressed just with a bit of common sense. Having done most of my flying in Europe, transitioning to the US I noticed a tendency of some pilots to “start up and go”, relying a lot on the electronics on their plane. An adequate preflight and a focus on proficiency are all that is necessary to drastically reduce accidents. Since I cannot rely on my experience, I bother about currency a lot. When I need to take passengers I try to make it so that not more than 2 weeks have passed since my previous flight, and if they did, schedule a short flight alone or with a CFI (depending on how much time has passed) just to be 100% current. That, combined with an accurate preflight, higher personal minimums, declining of any request to do stunts or buzzing and good passenger briefings should already increase the safety level, and there is still much more that can be done without taking the fun out of flying! It is important though that this mentality be taught to student pilots beginning in ground school and primary flight training.
In the end, as pilots we are still human and will inevitably make mistakes, but with a little effort we can take action to see that these mistakes not endanger our lives and those of our passengers.

By: Robert K

Robert K — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 02:46:36 +0000

Well stated, Gerard

By: Gerard

Gerard — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:06:38 +0000

I think Capt. John and you are barking up the wrong tree on this one. Let us focus on producing better pilots and let them educate their GA passengers.

Most passengers on commercial flights will choose their airline based on schedule and ticket price, not safety record. I seriously doubt those same passengers would bother with a part 91 checklist. What I find is that many people do have a greater concern for safety when it comes to small aircraft. In my wife’s case it is more like a phobia, she wouldn’t fly with me if my name was Sullenberger! But many will also gladly climb aboard a C172 without asking a single question about their chances for a safe landing. I provide my passengers with a safety lecture regardless, this is the cost of flying with me.

I am all for making aviation safer for part 91 pilots and passengers, but I think it needs to be done through education and not regulation. Somewhere in the quest for GA safety there is a cost vs. benefit line and I think we are getting close to it.

Flying is both a privilege and a choice. The FAA stipulates that if a pilot has earned that privilege and maintains currency, said pilot may carry passengers. The regulations are intended to ensure that at least a minimum of proficiency is attained and then maintained . But ultimately the responsibility for conducting a safe flight rest solely with the PIC. Likewise passengers need to make a choice as to whether or not they wish to fly with said pilot, lets also call them PICs, “Passengers In Control”. Whether or not they make an informed choice is ultimately their responsibility, but even an informed choice will not be a guarantee of a safe flight. Even a great pilot can have a bad day or a bad plane or bad fuel, etc. How would more regulation prevent those accidents?

Yes, more regulation might make GA a little safer, but at what cost? The very things that make GA possible and accessible are also the things that put GA at an inherently increased risk for safety when compared to the heavily regulated and much more expensive airlines. Each year millions will choose to enjoy the benefits of GA, but each year several hundred people will loose their lives in GA accidents, this is the unavoidable cost of that choice.

By: Don R. Bush

Don R. Bush — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:18:28 +0000

I think Capt. Sully said it best (concerning the inadequacy of the FAA NPRM on crew fatigue.)

“…we owe it to our passengers to do for them the very best that we know how to do, and to have the integrity and courage to reject the merely expedient and the barely adequate as being, quite frankly, not good enough.

That’s what it means to be a professional, whether one is flying for fun or for a living.”

By: Robert K

Robert K — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 01:08:45 +0000

ALL pilots make mistakes, remember Tenerife Disaster (most killed in an air accident) involved professional pilots, one who took off without a clearance. The recent New York accident when two professional pilots allowed a plane to stall and killed 50 people and one on the ground. I only have 200 hours but I feel my passengers are flying with someone who is safer than some professional pilots. When Captain John finds the answer I hope test pilots, military pilots, and professional pilots take notice.

No law can make a safe pilot, I wish there was. Robert

By: Mark Dickerson

Mark Dickerson — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 04:58:09 +0000

Of course, this discussion is largely preaching to the choir. The readers here are doing their best to get it right. But that doesn’t absolve us of a portion of the blame for mishaps like “Cross Country Crisis”. A USAF safety magazine published the following quote decades ago.

“We should all bear one thing in mind when we talk about the troop who rode one in. He called upon the sum of all his knowledge and made a judgement. He believed in it so strongly that he knowingly bet his life on it. That he was mistaken in his judgement is a tragedy, not stupidity. Every supervisor and contemporary who spoke to him had an opportunity to influence his judgement. So a little of us goes in with every troop we lose.”

The anonymous pilot who attempted to get the mishap pilot to reconsider was probably doing this the right way. Would I have gone to that much trouble? Would you? We need to encourage our brother and sister pilots to get it right, even as we try to do this ourselves. A passenger checklist would be nice, but it will never make it to the hands that need to hold it.

By: David Heberling

David Heberling — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 05:06:27 +0000

Cross Country Crisis is certainly an example of poor decision making, and woe to the passengers who volunteered to be his victims. The trouble is, don’t we all do the same thing when we hop in a car with our friends, step on a bus, subway, or train? Do we really need more regulation? I think part of the problem is due to the different flying characteristics of the same airplane flown at different gross weights. It is often said that most pilots fly alone or one other person. It is very rare for someone to fly with all seats filled. Therein lies the rub. The airplane with one person in it is not the same airplane with all seats filled. Does anyone ever test a pilot by flying at a low gross weight and then again at a high one? I think not. In my own experience, it is somewhat surprising the lack of performance one experiences at high gross weight. Even if the take off is done successfully, the landing is another matter. Again, it is the rear CG that makes the landing feel squirrely. It is a much different trim setting for landing with a back of the envelope CG than a much more forward one.

The truth is, there is no getting around the fact that life is risky. Risk cannot ever be legislated away. Who knows, maybe more automation is the answer. The airplane will know how much it weighs and won’t take off over gross. It will require that a destination be entered and it will access whether the flight can be done with the amount of fuel it senses onboard. Even if this were true, there would be pilots who would try to defeat the safeguards. Also merely asking questions will not guarantee truthful answers. How is a passenger to know any differently?

By: Mike Baker

Mike Baker — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 04:47:34 +0000

A tough and very valid issue. It’s part of the problem of being pilot in command. The PIC has decisions to make and I don’t know of anyway to force them to always make the correct decision no matter how many regulations, checklist, or methodologies we have. The PIC still has to make that decision.

One of the things I try to stess with the pilots I train is responsibility of command. Anyone who rides with us, and particularly, anyone who is a non pilot, is putting their lives in our hands. It is an awesome responsibility. We should handle it appropriately. Consider the consequences to the families of our passengers if they were to die, consider it every time you takeoff with anyone else onboard.

By: Larry Wheelock

Larry Wheelock — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 04:32:55 +0000

I get so frustrated at so many of these I am sure reports are only presented to us as a video. Maybe you don’t realize it, but many of us, probably 100′s of thousands, still do not have access to high speed internet connections and thus these videos are useless, terribly time consuming, and just plain frustrating.
Occasionally, some web masters or knowledgable people will produce a video that works ok on less than DSL speeds.

By: Rick Ellinger

Rick Ellinger — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:46:38 +0000

Judgment, Proficiency, and Systems Understanding are all critical for the pilot. The passengers have little ability to evaluate the first and no ability to evaluate the second and third. Pilots rated private, commercial or CFII can all have weaknesses in situations that involve urgent travel or urgent decision making in the air when things go bad. I’d like to see a routine set of courses, similar to the safety briefings on AOPA that are required (tied to insurance renewal if passengers are to be carried) that stress judgment about making a trip and urgent decision-making in the air. Posting a checklist for passengers without warnings of risk and consequences, are not likely to help. Most are techno-phobic and a discussion of systems capability for them will bore most, scare a significant number and provide a false sense of security to others. Proficiency and airmanship are easily measured by a CFI biennially. A recurrent set of training programs specifically focusing on judgment before and during a flight, where circumstances such as weather change en-route, with documented results might help for many pilots.

I’ve been a passenger in GA aircraft where, knowing what I know now, I would never get aboard. I’ve seen pilot behavior that may be good on the ground but once in the air, shows a complete inability to read the clouds, winds, and forecast and a great reluctance to alter their course.
People who cannot navigate if their GPS unit stops working, people who will take off in fog with a fully loaded light twin and people who fly through mountain passes when they could easily be 2000 feet higher and clear of peaks alarm me. Just documenting flight hours won’t solve the problem; familiarity with the airplane breeds a complacency. Every airplane can have it’s surprising quirks any day. Commercial planes have backup systems, backup pilots and lots of rules with consequences.

For GA and passengers, we need to have a ‘trust but verify’ program- judgment-building decision making, regularly taught and refreshed and documented would help. Originally I felt the FAA wings program offered some of this, but alas, we’ve moved away from that. Maybe we should revisit this with a ‘master aviator’ – oriented program en every class of GA aircraft. This course material, as check lists and scenarios, could be provided to passengers, who could then serve as judgment enhancement, particularly pre-flight.