Decision Making and Risk — Page 297, Lesson 494

I want to walk you through the decision-making and risk process as it applies to professional flying. Let's start with the very first step: diagnosing the problem correctly. Faulty diagnosis is a real danger—if you misidentify the problem, you end up solving the wrong one entirely. To avoid that, the book tells us that you must get confirmation of your diagnosis from other crew members at this early stage. If you're flying single-pilot, by yourself, then you have to deliberately and calmly double-check your own initial diagnosis. No shortcuts, no rushing. Once you're certain the diagnosis is correct, the next step is defining the objective. That objective must be crystal clear. And the book says that once the crew is sure the diagnosis is right, the objective is normally self-evident—it flows directly from the problem you've identified. Now, what makes a decision "good"? A decision is good if it can be implemented within the time available. That's the key measure. And here's something that might surprise you: contrary to popular belief, it is unusual in flight that time dictates a very quick decision. Certainly, a rapid solution is essential during an emergency on take-off or landing, or if the aircraft is flying close to the ground. But on most other occasions, a crew can make time in the air. There are many options open to you to buy that time. Let me list some of those options from the book: - An approach can be converted into an overshoot. - The aircraft can be put into a hold while the problem is assessed and solved. - Take-off may be delayed. - Speed can always be reduced. - Diversion is nearly always an option. So you have tools to create time. But the book also warns about errors of commission—doing something wrong because you acted too quickly. The only effective solution when you expect to be short of time is to prepare the decision in advance. That's why thorough flight preparation plus briefings before each high-risk phase of flight provide the best guarantee against making decisions under time pressure. Now, let's talk about commercial considerations. Things like fuel costs can encourage a pilot to self-impose a time restriction. It's easy from the classroom to view these as small compared to safety, but the book is clear: commercial considerations can put considerable pressure on aircrew and thereby colour their decisions. That pressure is real, and you need to be aware of it. Next, we move to collecting information. Every source of information must be utilized. Other crew members must always be included as one of the most important sources. The Commander's perception of the situation may well differ from that of the crew. If that's the case, and you include the crew as early as possible in the decision-making process, the consequent discussion and analysis is almost certain to pre-empt a faulty diagnosis. Finally, we assess risk. Due to the dynamics of the situation—particularly the speed of the aircraft—an action emanating from a decision is frequently irreversible. That means risk is involved. In assessing risk, you must consider both the amount of that risk and the probability of that risk. Unfortunately, experiments have found that humans are not skilled at assessing the probability of different outcomes and their resulting risks. A person will tend to overestimate the frequency of a very rare but beneficial or positive occurrence. This bias explains why gambling and lotteries are pursued—because the low-probability payoffs are perceived as occurring more frequently than they actually do. That same bias can affect your decision-making in the cockpit if you're not careful.