I worked with the NBAA Safety Committee Single-Pilot Work Group to assemble the association’s Risk Management Guide For Single-Pilot Light Business Aircraft, pictured at right. One of the new concepts in the Guide is one more risk-management acronym: TEMA, a variation on “team,” which stands for Transfer, Eliminate, Mitigate and Accept. Highlights include these elements:
• Transfer: Front-load your flight- and risk-planning tasks well ahead of a planned flight. If you absolutely have to be somewhere on a date certain, and conditions aren’t promising, planning ahead will give you time to transfer the risk to the airlines.
• Eliminate: As you plan ahead of your proposed flight and are weighing the risks against a low-priority event, consider changing its date or canceling.
• Mitigate: If the flight is doable but still poses challenges, consider departing a day early to avoid incoming weather, since regulatory compliance “does not guarantee a safe flight or the elimination of risk.”
• Accept: After all mitigations have been implemented, you must accept the remaining risk for yourself and your passengers. “This intuitive but affirmative action is all too often glossed over by pilots who fail to recognize the risk that remains.”
