Human Factors

At the end of last year, I presented you all with a gift of heroic acts from the annals of the reports in NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, in the pilots’ own words. This year I give you “unusual cockpit occurrences.” Some have been edited for clarity and length. Enjoy and happy holidays! Sand trap […]

One of the pilots had a handheld radio in his flight bag, in the back of the airplane. He spent a good amount of time fighting with his seatbelt, and then crawling over seats to retrieve it.

A cell phone fire onboard a Southwest Airlines jet parked at the jetway made news recently. Apparently, the phone was off and in the passenger’s pocket when it ignited. He managed to yank it from his pocket and throw it to the floor. The phone promptly set the carpet on fire before both were extinguished. […]

“It was a close call,” wrote the captain in her report to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. “If we had not realized what was happening and acted on it, all the occupants of the aircraft would have likely lost consciousness and suffocated.” What catastrophic event caused one airline captain to have a near-death experience on […]

El Paso to Phoenix, 11:30 p.m., cruising at 12,000, we could barely hear the radio calls from all the laughter in the cockpit. It was the second leg of three, after taking delivery of our newly acquired Twin Comanche in Dallas. The winds aloft were warmer than normal. We were positively giddy that neither the […]

I went to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl one January night in 1995. I remember several things about that night. First, I recall offering my jacket to my date, as it was unseasonably cold. Normally in January in the LA basin, summer temperatures prevail because of strong easterly Santa Ana winds scouring hot air […]

I thought the flight went spectacularly. My first turbine experience — flying three hours solid over the Los Angeles trafficscape with the legendary helicopter traffic reporter Commander Chuck Street. In between his traffic reports, he’d given me the thumbs up and nods of approval. Life felt great. During my three-hour tour, Chuck tested my skills, […]

We pilots of a certain age were taught in school that George Washington never told a lie. Teachers drove the point home with a story about America’s first president and a certain felled cherry tree. I’m not sure why a lesson about being honest had to involve George Washington. Maybe it was to make the […]

I once was the instructor for a high fashion student. Her day-trading job had recently netted her a lot of money. Her hard work paid out handsomely and she wanted everyone to know it. If that meant stepping out of the pilot’s seat of her own airplane in stylish high heels, so be it. Her […]