Monday Accident & Lessons Learned: Human Error That Should Not Occur

This Accident shares a “Call Back” Report from the Aviation Safety Reporting System that is applicable far beyond aviation.

In this case, the pilot was fatigued and just wanted to “get home.” He had a “finish the mission” focus that could have cost him his life. Here’s an excerpt:

I saw nothing of the runway environment…. I had made no mental accommodation to do a missed approach as I just knew that my skills would allow me to land as they had so many times in past years. The only conscious control input that I can recall is leveling at the MDA [Rather than continuing to the DA? –Ed.] while continuing to focus outside the cockpit for the runway environment. It just had to be there! I do not consciously remember looking at the flight instruments as I began…an uncontrolled, unconscious 90-degree turn to the left, still looking for the runway environment.

To read about this near-miss and the lessons learned, see:

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/cb/cb_436.pdf