It is one of the great challenges facing those of us dedicated to reducing the accident rate in aviation: How do we help pilots maintain an awareness of the potential negative consequences of taking chances in aviation? One approach is to publish articles about accidents, exhorting pilots not to make the same mistakes. However, there are so many of these articles in almost every aviation magazine, pilots can get numb to them. The fact that there are about 1,500 aviation accidents in this country each year, approximately four per day, makes it obvious this approach is not as effective as we would like it to be.
Another problem is that many of the accidents fall into a few very familiar categories — continuing into IMC without an instrument rating or a clearance, flying low, running out of gas, trying to take off at a high density altitude with tanks and seats full. Most pilots could probably recite the list in their sleep. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. We open to an accident article, read the title and think, “It’s just another pilot flying too low” or “another pilot continuing on into bad weather.” It doesn’t help that some pilots dismiss articles about accidents, thinking, “I would never do that!”
