Professional Pilots Checklists, Company Policies and Go Around Noncompliance

Depending on the regulations under which an aircraft will operate, the FAA and ICAO have established provisions to ensure that appropriate information is gathered and considered before flight. It is extremely important for pilots to be well-prepared ahead of time with the information they will need to make good aeronautical decisions.

Although the aircraft checklist has long been regarded as the foundation of pilot standardization and cockpit safety, it has escaped the scrutiny of the human factors profession. The improper use, or the non-use, of the normal checklist by flight crews is often cited as the probable cause or at least a contributing factor to aircraft accidents.

All pilots have been taught the importance of using written checklists, but a few ignore this flight safety resource. The FAA’s practical test standards clearly state that pilots must use appropriate written checklists, yet the accident record shows that some pilots don’t.

FAR 121.315 Cockpit Check Procedure

1. Each certificate holder shall provide an approved cockpit check procedure for each type of aircraft.
2. The approved procedures must include each item necessary for flight crew-members to check for safety before starting engines, taking off, or landing, and in engine and system emergencies. The procedure must be designed so that a flight crewmember will not need to rely upon his memory for items to be checked.
3. The approved procedures must be readily usable in the cockpit of each aircraft and the flight crew shall follow them when operating the aircraft.

The major function of the checklist is to ensure that the crew will properly configure the plane for flight, and maintain this level of quality throughout the flight, and in every flight. The process of conducting a checklist occurs during all flight segments and, in particular, prior to the critical segments (TAKEOFF, APPROACH, LANDING). Although these segments comprise only 27 percent of average flight duration, they account for 76.3 per cent of hull-loss accidents (Lautman and Gallimore, 1988).

Checklist is intended to achieve the following objectives:

1. Aid the pilot in recalling the process of configuring the plane.
2. Provide a standard foundation for verifying aircraft configuration that will defeat any reduction in the flight crew’s psychological and physical condition.
3. Provide convenient sequences for motor movements and eye fixations along the cockpit panels.
4. Provide a sequential framework to meet internal and external cockpit operational requirements
5. Allow mutual supervision (cross checking) among crew members.
6. Enhance a team (crew) concept for configuring the plane by keeping all crew members “in the loop.”
7. Dictate the duties of each crew member in order to facilitate optimum crew coordination as well as logical distribution of cockpit workload.
8. Serve as a quality control tool by flight management and government regulators over the pilots in the process of configuring the plane for the flight. Source

Go Around Non-Compliance Research

While the vast majority of all aircraft accidents still occur in the landing phase, research shows that nearly all pilots who fly professionally ignore company policies regarding go-around procedures.

Curtis, formerly director of flight safety at Air Canada and chairman of safety committees for groups such as Airlines for America (then the Air Transport Association) and International Air Transport Association, notes that in 2011, 65% of all accidents occurred on landing and approach. A decade earlier, Curtis recently told the Air Charter Safety Foundation’s 2014 Air Charter Safety Symposium, “It’s the same story. Nothing changed in 10 years. In 2012, it’s almost identical.”
Leading safety researchers have concluded that 83% of landing accidents could be preventable with a go-around, Curtis notes. Studies conducted by multiple sources, including an Airbus study and analyses of Line Operations Safety Audit and FAA’s Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing data, have shown that only 3-4% of pilots follow their company policies on go-around procedures, Curtis notes.

While the statistics are more substantial concerning the fact that pilots aren’t following company policies, less is known as to why. Flight Safety Foundation’s International Advisory Committee and European Advisory Committee in 2011 commissioned Presage to use a science-based approach to look at pilots’ decision-making.

Presage (Presage, which is working with the Flight Safety Foundation to study human factors surrounding go-around decision-making) surveyed nearly 2,400 pilots on their situational awareness during a go-around event and an unstable approach. Presage broke down situational awareness during these events into nine “constructs” ranging from a “gut feeling” to “seeing the threats” and “knowing the procedures.” Pilots who made go-around decisions had better recall of all nine situational constructs during their decision-making than did pilots who chose to proceed with an unstable approach. Source

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