Sep

17

Some interesting excerpts from the North Atlantic MNPSA (Airspace) Operations Manual, Chapter 13 - Guarding Against Complacency

13.1.3 It is therefore essential that crews do not take modern technology for granted. They should at all times, especially during periods of low workload, guard against complacency and over-confidence, by adhering rigidly to approved cockpit/flight deck procedures which have been formulated over many years, in order to help stop operational errors from being an inevitability.

and my personal favorite:

Always remember that something absurd may have happened in the last half-hour. There are often ways in which an overall awareness of directional progress can be maintained; the position of the sun or stars; disposition of contrails; islands or coast-lines which can be seen directly or by using radar; radio navaids, and so forth. This is obvious and basic, but some of the errors which have occurred could have been prevented if the crew had shown more of this type of awareness.


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  1. Nigel Davies on September 23, 2011 5:24 am

    The issue of vigilance is a massive one for chess players so for a long time I’ve been fascinated by methods of trying to maintain this. One thing I found in my playing career is that over the years I’ve become ever more careful the ‘easier’ things got, so in a totally winning position I take far more time.

    Of course this kind of ‘thinking change’ brought about by massive experience isn’t easy to acquire in other fields, especially when one mistake can put someone out of the game for good. So it’s interesting to look at the Samurai approach - they trained themselves to enter any room believing that the roof might cave in.

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