Human Factors

So one takeaway from this accident is to concentrate on deliberate, smooth application of throttle — of any lever, dial, or knob on the flight deck, for that matter. We really don’t have anything in our play book that needs to be done at the speed of light and the strength of Superman.

What can we learn from a sightseeing flight that proved fatal for a young pilot and his girlfriend’s brother?

A flight to celebrate a dad earning his private pilot certificate ends tragically. What can we learn from it?

When a pilot crashes his new plane on the same day he bought it, NTSB investigators discovered the smoking gun for the accident was a part that pilots can’t see during a preflight.

The two shattered links of the accident chain were not adjacent, as they so often are. The first came during an otherwise diligent preflight. The second was a skipped memory item from the emergency checklist that, otherwise, would have saved the day.

What lessons can we learn from a pilot who hits a train while taking off from a grass airstrip?

In addition to picking the right airplane for the job, an important pilot skill is bringing the same level of thought to picking the right airport for the airplane.

The pilot’s cold weather start technique is blamed for accident when his Cessna 172’s engine quits due to a lack of oil.