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Should I Be Doing This?

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • The article discusses the crucial difference between "safe" and "legal" actions in aviation, recommending pilots evaluate choices by imagining how they would appear in an accident report or to an examiner.
  • In situations where regulations and safety diverge, especially "no-win" scenarios, a pilot's ultimate responsibility is to prioritize the preservation of life.
  • When deviating from regulations for safety, declaring an emergency can provide protection, but even without it, reasoned and justifiable actions focused on achieving the safest or least dangerous outcome are generally accepted and commended by authorities.
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Many times in these pages we’ve discussed the disconnect of safe versus legal. As our regs guru, Mark Kolber, in this issue covers lost-comm procedures and their examples of what’s legal versus what makes sense, I again mused on this.

While the regulations usually mandate safe actions, there are exceptions where safe isn’t legal and legal isn’t necessarily safe. How can you tell the difference? I have long used two different, but related, measures.

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