Conquering Biases

No, we’re not departing from aviation-related information to give you a lesson in political correctness. But certain pilot biases can cause trouble.

Fred Simonds

Monday, February 19, 2024 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Handsome middle age mature man wearing airplane pilot uniform with hand on head, headache because stress. suffering migraine.

Key Takeaways:

Expectation and confirmation biases are deeply ingrained cognitive tendencies where pilots perceive what they anticipate, often leading to critical errors such as runway incursions or misidentifying airports.
Other significant behavioral pitfalls include the normalization of deviance (gradually accepting unsafe practices as routine) and procedural drift (unconsciously deviating from established regulations and checklists over time).
These biases and deviations are largely unconscious, affect all pilots regardless of experience, and can only be mitigated through active self-training, constant questioning of observations, seeking conflicting cues, and rigorous adherence to procedures.

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Your home airport’s winds almost always favor Runway 30 departures via a left-turn taxi at Alpha. Today, the wind favors Runway 12. Reaching Alpha, which way should you turn? If you turned left or were so tempted, you fell into or narrowly avoided the expectation bias trap.

Expectation bias lurks in everything we do, especially things we do repetitively. When we get in a car, we expect it to start. When we turn on the tap labeled H, we expect hot water. Each time you taxi to Runway 30, expectation bias is strengthened. No wonder it so quickly becomes automatic.