There’s no question pilots can make dumb mistakes—each month, the back pages of this magazine have the proof. In many instances, however, pilots make mistakes because they weren’t warned of the consequences of their (in)actions. In other words, sometimes they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s the NTSB’s role to investigate aviation accidents in the U.S., and to come up with recommendations on ways to prevent them.
One of the NTSB’s prevention tools is called a safety alert. It’s a concise statement of what it’s observed, including a brief description of what’s happened to cause related accidents, recommendations on ways pilots can prevent them and a resource list for additional study. The Board has published several of these alerts on various safety topics in recent years (see the June 2013 issue of Aviation Safety) and released four more in March; three targeting pilots and one for mechanics. The NTSB’s recommendations are summarized in the sidebar on the opposite page.
