Catch GPS Errors Early

Fred Simonds

Monday, June 22, 2020 at 08:54 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots must proactively prevent avionics errors by rigorously cross-checking flight plans—including calculations, waypoints, and distances—to avoid "garbage in, garbage out" scenarios.
Leverage advanced avionics like error-evident displays and armed modes to enhance situational awareness and safety, while simultaneously maintaining fundamental piloting skills such as spatial reasoning.
Advanced technology should not lower a pilot's risk tolerance; instead, its capabilities should be utilized to improve decision-making, ensure thorough pre-flight planning, and ultimately reduce vulnerability.

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In our previous episode, we shared seventeen of the most common pilot avionics errors identified in FAA and NASA studies. If 80 percent of consequences come from 20 percent of the causes, knowing even this little goes a long way.

Now, using the classic learn-from-our-mistakes reasoning, the FAA then swaps its perspective from reactive (noticing and fixing errors) to proactive (preventing errors). The advanced cockpit, rich with information resources, enables pilots to catch and correct many mistakes before consequences occur. In the spirit of using all resources at hand, let’s devote our fourth and final article in this series to exploring the opportunities we have to nip these errors in the bud.