Are Two Pilots Better Than One?

The days mission was to coach a friend of mine through his three bangs-and-goes using another friends Cessna 172. Although he had little time, if any, in Cessnas, he was in the left seat. I was serving as PIC from the right. Shortly after we secured the cabin and ran the before-start checklist, the mighty 160-hp Lycoming was happily purring away. We were getting ready to call for a taxi clearance when the engine stopped. No cough, no protest, no warning. What did you do? I asked. Nothing, the bang-and-go candidate responded. So we ran the checklist again. When we came to the floor-mounted fuel selector, I asked, How did the fuel selector get turned off? He said, Its not; I turned it to both before starting the engine and havent touched it since. Houston, we found the problem.

Key Takeaways:

• Effective communication and verification between pilots are essential to prevent errors, such as unannounced changes to aircraft systems, which can lead to dangerous situations.
• In any multi-pilot general aviation flight, one individual must be clearly designated as the Pilot In Command (PIC) to maintain ultimate authority and decision-making responsibility.
• While formal Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) is less common in GA, its core principles of shared understanding, clear roles, and verbalizing actions are crucial for safety when two pilots are operating an aircraft.

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