U.S. Department
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St. Louis |
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August 2000 |
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www.faa.gov/fsdo/stlfsdo
Thought for the month.....The values and principles that motivate us.
The worthiness of our goals.
The truth of our abilities and talents.
These are the things that govern success and failure in our lives.
Reality is not negotiable....The National Transportation Board has identified disorientation
as the cause of John F. Kennedy JR's crash last year which took his life, and the lives of his wife and sister-in-law.
Essentially, it was identified as a graveyard spiral, which has been a known killer since the dawn of human flight.
Flying on intruments is easy; learning to recover from unusual attitudes is the tough part.
Because of the way our plumbing is connected in our inner ear, we may never "feel" the aircraft bank
and begin a turn. Without a visible horizon or other references, we will not be able to maintain controlled flight.
A momentary distraction is all it takes. Looking down at a chart for a frequency, or focusing on a radio to tune
it in. Finding a completely different picture presented on the instrument panel when we return to it can be very
confusing. A battle can develop between what we know to be true (seat of the pants), and what those lying instruments
are trying to make us believe. If we don't determine the reality of the situation very quickly, we could find
ourselves in an unrecoverable situation.
When things like this occur people often ask: "Didn't he know better?" Knowing might not be the problem.
In the study of cognitive psychology, three domains of learning have been identified. The first is the cognitive
level, which is the knowing part. It is the brain and it's where we collect data. At the other end of the process
is the psychomotor domain, which means behavior or physical skill. The ability to physically move the controls
in the correct manner is the psychomotor domain. If human beings were computers, we could input the correct information
into the cognitive domain and the result would be perfect behavior or performance. The fact that it doesn't work
that way demonstrates the presence of the third domain, the affective domain. That's where all our values, attitudes,
and emotions live, and our knowledge gets filtered by these factors before becoming behavior.
Because the affective domain governs our behavior, we cannot help but react to situations with our feelings. But,
we must also be able to see what is real. Our feelings are as faulty as our ability to determine up from down
so we must defer to the cognitive level, our brain, to save the day. If the brain hasn't got much to work with
in the way of experience, or our skills are weak due to lack of recency or proficiency, the situation could become
pretty frightening.
We can surmise that John Kennedy became disoriented and lost control of his aircraft. We know the physiology that
occurs to cause that to happen, but we'll never know the reasons he allowed it to happen. Competent pilots realize
that they can't cheat reality. We acknowledge it when we build in safety factors. In the case of JFK, engaging
the autopilot early in the flight, remaining at altitude until directly over the destination before letting down,
and keeping outside visual references in sight at all times, were certainly techniques that might have averted
the tragedy.
Flight instructors know that the highest level of learning is correlation, the ability to associate what has been
previously learned, with a new task. It's one of the reasons we advocate a conservative approach to flying that
allows us to accumulate experiences and learn its realities safely, over time. John Kennedy knew about disorientation
but he probably had never really experienced it, so on the evening of his fatal flight he couldn't interpret how
the existing conditions might lead to a dangerous situation. He was aware of the concept of disorientation, but
not the reality of it, and the truth of our abilities and talents will govern the success and failure in our lives.
Upcoming Events
Sep. 16
Highland Airport, Highland, Illinois
St. Louis Soaring Association
Open House and Safety Day
9am to 1pm
Sep. 21
West Plains, MO
South Central Chapter MPA
Mid-Air Collision Avoidance
Pizza Inn
7pm to 9pm
Oct. 21
Marriott West Hotel, Town & Country MO
Helicopter Safety Seminar
8am to 1pm
Oct. 26
Creve Coeur Aviation
Creve Coeur Airport
Aviation Safety Program
7pm to 9pm
LET'S NOT MEET BY ACCIDENT
FRED P. HARMS
Operations Safety Program Manager
1-800-322-8876 x 4835
Fred.Harms@faa.gov
