Knowing When to Cut Bait

FLYING Staff

Friday, June 04, 2004 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

A pilot faces a critical inflight decision, torn between a strong desire to reach home and rapidly deteriorating weather and visibility conditions that violate personal safety rules.
To navigate this dilemma, the pilot uses a "NTSB rule of thumb," imagining how an accident report would read if a risky choice led to failure, as an objective method to assess the true danger.
The article underscores that critical decisions, both in aviation and life, are often ambiguous and require balancing objective facts with subjective desires and an intuitive "gut feeling," which the pilot ultimately heeds to choose safety.

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The action is so simple, requiring such a small amount of effort. And yet I can’t quite seem to get myself to perform it.

My hand is poised on the throttle knob. All I have to do is pull it back. And yet, in that move is the surrender of my own home and bed for at least two days. If I leave the throttle where it is, I have a chance of making it home tonight. The minute I pull it back, that chance is gone. And because weather is moving in, it will also probably leave me stuck in some remote motel for longer than I care to think about.