Risk management in aviation can be complex, yet crucial. Dave talks about some risk management techniques they used to implement back then, for aviators flying into unfamiliar territories.
“My career has all been in crew airplanes, airplanes that have more than one person like pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator, loadmaster and so forth. We learned early on way back in the day to back one another up. No matter how sharp the crew member is, anyone is capable of becoming complacent and susceptible to human error, which is inevitable and universal.
“I remember back in the day when we flew the Hercules, the C1 34 engine turboprop plane for two weeks at a time to Central America. We first fly into the Republic of Panama and then from Panama we would fly up to other countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, in fact everyone besides Belize. We weren’t flying in a radar pattern like you do across the United States. We weren’t flying to 11,400 foot runways like the one at my home station in Massachusetts. We’re flying in a non radar environment, which is a lot more challenging because there's a lot of high terrain in Central America, including volcanoes. The airfields are pretty austere. They can be pretty challenging due to their short runways and high terrain in the vicinity of the airports so you really have to be on the top of your game.
“Fortunately my unit was pretty careful about how they selected crews. They didn't use the term risk management in those days but that's exactly what they were doing. They would examine the makeup of all 8-10 crews and decide to put this copilot with that pilot, this navigator with that flight engineer etc. The first time I was to fly down there I was to be the aircraft commander. I had never been to Central America in my life.
“How to manage that risk in this case. It was ingenious in my view. They gave me a copilot who didn’t have an actual civilian job, and all he did was fly for the Air Force Reserve. He had been flying in Central America for the past 6 weeks. So they gave me a seasoned copilot instead of another copilot who hadn’t been there in his life either. That was a huge help. They gave me a very experienced flight engineer who had been around forever, and same thing with the navigator, very experienced navigator. That was how our leadership managed the risk in those days even though you didn't use that term. And we got through 2 weeks of flying into several challenging airports and we did fine.
“Risk management on the part of leadership is essential. You can get complacent if you assume that flying in Central America is the same as flying in your home station in the United States, it is not.“
For the full audio podcast, listen to “Complacency in Flight,” on our front page.
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