? ONE QUESTION By Christine A. DeJoy
conduct preflight inspections
77% 61% exercise better CRM;
conduct stabilized hover checks
raised personal minimums
58% complete FRATs 32% 16 ROTOR 2020 Q4
What changes have you made since experiencing—or narrowly avoiding— an aviation accident?
E
XPERIENCING AN ACCIDENT OR NEAR MISS CAN BE A WAKE-UP CALL— time to go back to basics, dust off that procedures manual, or get additional training. To find out what changes our readers have made since experiencing an
accident or close call, ROTOR anonymously surveyed them in September. After reading their suggestions, why not cut out the accident and go straight to improving your flight routine?
More Preflight Inspections, Better CRM. Overwhelmingly, performing a preflight inspection or walk-around is the top change our readers have made post-accident or -incident: 77% of our 31 respondents (24 people) say they now always conduct the safety procedure. Certainly, we hope the 23% of respondents who didn’t select this answer didn’t because they were already conducting walk-arounds, an essential aspect of safe flight. Exercising better crew resource management (61%, or 19 individuals) and always completing a stabilized hover check before departure (also 61%) are the next most common changes. And 32% now always use a flight risk assessment tool (FRAT) since having had an accident or near miss.
Taking Initiative. Most of our respondents say they’ve taken the initiative to learn on their own since their accident/event. More than half say they’ve changed their personal-minimum criteria to a higher standard (58%, or 18 respondents), and a similar amount now make time for personal aviation study (55%, or 17 readers). Nearly a third of respondents (29%, or 9) have requested additional training with an instructor.
Already Doing That. The least-selected changes our readers have adopted in response to an accident or near-accident are to (1) always complete the required maintenance procedure card without any interruptions or distractions (13%, 4 respondents); (2) always complete a quality-assurance check after maintenance procedures that mandate one (26%, 8 people); and (3) adopt, or increase the frequency with which they practice, in-aircraft and/or simulator training (also 26%). Again, we hope the low number of respondents reporting these changes means they had always incorporated these practices into their flight routine.
ROTOR also asked readers to describe an especially memorable change they’ve made as a result of an accident or close call. At right are some of their responses (edited for space).
MANY ANSWERS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
