Risk mitigation practices in commercial aviation

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how risk management in airline operations affects the decision-making of pilots and the variables involved with the identification, recognition, mitigation, and reduction of the risk. The author utilizes his personal experience and knowledge of a 37-year career in the airline industry, as a flight attendant, flight crew member and instructor, and his education to define the history, evolution, and personal methods of risk assessment and mitigation practices utilized when interfacing with a commercial airliner. Further, it describes how pilots develop mental skills that enhance their methods of risk mitigation. Dialog explores how the science of human factors changed pilot training philosophies from focusing on individual performance to that of a group/crew philosophy. In addition, the paper defines training approaches that incorporate metacognitive, technical, and nontechnical skills that provide pilots with enhanced capabilities for identifying and correcting potential human error (HE), as HE cannot be prevented. Interfacing with today's complex aircraft requires procedures and practices that allow individuals to work together as a team to reduce error; this is to lower the probability and consequences of potential human failure.