You might have heard the old adage, “The flight cannot be cleared for departure until the gross weight of the paperwork exceeds that of the aircraft.” While cynical, this reference to all the required processes, rules, and regulations makes a good point. Regulations and procedures for pilots largely mirror those of ATC, but these might have widely different interpretations based on where you sit.
Born Out of Blood
We have all heard the expression that rules and regulations were essentially “born out of blood” or “written in blood.” While this is true to an extent, aviation (along with many other things) started from a reactive culture and moved toward a proactive culture. Every NTSB report filed either touches an existing rule for pilots or ATC, or calls to create a new rule. Depending on what exactly might be the remedy, the process of deciding whether it is a systematic rule or human related starts at the same time that the incident occurred. At the end of the day, something is done about it in some form or fashion. Whether it was effective or just feels good, I’ll leave to you.
