When angels fly with eagles: Safety as a culture

Abstract

Four in the morning, 7000 feet above sea level, the pilot peers over the instrument panel and sees nothing. Someone could have covered the windshield with black paint and he would not know the difference. To the sides, he sees streaks of mixed rain and snow in the glow of his navigation lights. He should contact Center and file an IFR flight plan. He won't. Center's radar can't see him down here among these mountains anyway, and he dare not climb up into the probability of ice.