“He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.” ~ Thomas Fuller. He wrote this towards the end of the 1600’s. So we’ve known for a long time that ‘perfect safety’ or zero-accidents is kinda silly. There are always dangers in the deep and in the air.
Confusion over Basic Things?
“There is still a lot of confusion over what seems to be basic things. We haven’t done a very good job of training folks.” ~ Aerobatic instructor Bruce Williams, expressing what many experienced pilots secretly know. Interview in the June 2015 edition of AOPA Pilot magazine. Bruce in his Extra 300L
We are Responsible …
“We are responsible for the incident and its consequences.” ~ Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman on the fatal Philadelphia derailment. Whatever the engineer’s actions in speeding into the curve, it’s refreshingto see a CEO actually take responsibility for a crash. System Safety and Just Culture moving beyond the safety dept? (Guardian newspaper story 2 June 2015.)
NTSB on Lessons Learned from UPS 1354
“I ask that we pilots recommit to standardization. In 2015, one of the NTSB’s Most Wanted List priorities is to Strengthen Procedural Compliance. This means: follow your SOPs. If you think one of your procedures is inappropriate or unwise, ask your company to consider changing it, but until they do, follow it and potentially avoid a catastrophic incident.” ~ Roger …
Richard De Crespigny on Wearing a Glove
That’s how you fly a glider, a C172, or in his case, an A380. One with the wing.
The Mindfulness Teacher
Meet the man who taught Michael Jordan & Kobe Bryant meditation. If it has helped top athletes achieve high performance under demanding conditions, why would you not try it? It’s free! Article in The Boston Globe, This mindfulness teacher gets results (just ask Kobe): Newton’s George Mumford teaches basketball greats — and everyday people — the power of flow. “The crowd gets …
When Those Systems Fail, and They Do Fail
Richard Champion de Crespigny was the Captain of Qantas Flight 32, an A380 that suffered massive systems damage when number two engine exploded and severed many connections. It is the kind of crazy emergency that we don’t train for. It’s the type of crazy emergency that shows airmanship isn’t all loops and rolls. It’s deep systems knowledge. (Quote from an …
Cannot Predict Human Factors?
“There is nothing we can do, because there is nothing that we failed in … This has to do with human factors, and you cannot predict that.” ~ Marlene Manave, the former boss of LAM Mozambique, regards her carrier’s response to the pilot murder-suicide crash of flight 470. So much for studying psychology then. Quoted in The Economist.
What Mattered to Steve Jobs
Many Pacquiao on Challenges
“Life is meant to be a challenge, because the challenges are what make you grow.” Many Pacquiao