On January 5, a door plug separated from the frame of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 as it climbed through 16,000 feet. The flight crew was able to report the emergency to ATC and land the aircraft—and only minor injuries were reported. 

Aviation has grown increasingly safe over the past few decades, with safety records ticking up steadily to the point that it’s statistically less dangerous to take a commercial flight across the planet than to get in your car and drive to the next city. General aviation isn’t quite at that level, although safety numbers on that front have been climbing as well—an aging GA fleet accessible to the majority of pilots notwithstanding. This incident would seem to be a warning call to remind us that aviation is safe because we work so hard to make it so. 

But apparently there were warnings before this for this particular aircraft. According to the NTSB’s preliminary report, the aircraft had experienced pressurization problems on December 30, just a few days before the door plug blew out. 

Without knowing all of the details, I can’t comment on this particular case. 

But the whole scenario has me thinking a lot in general about the human factors of aviation and the checks we use to protect ourselves and others in the air. We have developed these checks with the full understanding that human beings are fallible and subject to pressures that can lead, at times, to bad decision-making. 

In fact, the recognition of human factors in aviation dates to its early days when accidents were often attributed solely to technical failures. Over time, it became evident that human error caused a significant number of accidents. This realization led to the establishment of human-related factors as a distinct field within aviation, with a focus on studying and mitigating the impact of those issues. 

To help mitigate this fallibility, professionals in aviation go through rigorous training and testing. They must use checklists. And they are required to make decisions that occasionally put personal interest (or at scale, economic interest) behind scrapping a flight because the risk is just too high, whether because of a potential maintenance issue, weather, or a crewmember just can’t hack it that day. 

Economic considerations in aviation are not small. Sometimes the safety of a flight is weighed against the commercial ramifications of failing to complete it. And that is powerful medicine, especially when risk looks somewhat abstract from the ground. However, pressure to complete a flight or project on schedule or within a particular budget should never eclipse safety considerations. 

It’s always worthwhile to slow down, investigate, and triple-check that our T’s are crossed and I’s dotted. We can’t allow all of the safe flights we’ve had before lead to complacency. 

Aviation is made safe by people committing to following established procedures, double-checking everything, and putting the safety of a given flight above commercial concerns or other social or psychological pressures. It takes strength to do this, but it’s so vital. In commercial aviation or general aviation, we should trust—but always verify. 

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If you are lucky enough to fly a large screen glass cockpit instrument display, your checklist may be contained in the pilot’s cockpit screen at the push of a button. If so, you may have the best of both worlds. Most of these electronic checklists are easily modified and are located in the pilot’s line of sight. Similarly, many of the iPad navigation applications have checklist options that perform the same function. Depending on where the iPad is located these can help balance the inside/outside visual scan as well. However, many of us, flying more vintage airplanes, are not so blessed. So, what is a budget-minded pilot to do? 

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As long as the airplane or propeller is not moving, having the paper checklist in hand is the way to go. But once we start moving, our eyes need to be outside the aircraft, clearing for obstacles, traffic, and wildlife, while we maintain strong checklist discipline. As usual, someone had already thought this problem through. Taking a page from the big iron, some Boeing models feature the Before Takeoff through Landing Checklists mounted right on the control yoke. So, while the jet is in motion, a glance down at the yoke is an additional reminder for the pilot flying the jet of how the checklist is progressing. Hmmm, could we do something similar? 

Well, many singles have a little unused panel real estate available that could host a compact before takeoff through after landing checklist. The higher on the panel, the better. Next step, make a mockup of your checklist on MS Word, and size it to fit the available space. Take your paper mockup to the local trophy/engraving shop, and—after a bit of explaining and the exchange of a few bucks—they will turn it into a stylish plaque to place on your instrument panel. Attach it to the panel with a little double-stick foam tape, and you have your pre takeoff through landing checklist, in plain sight of you and your copilot. Oh, if you think that you might want to add an item or two to the checklist, ask the engraver to maintain your file so that cutting an updated version will just take a few minutes. 

My experience is that this increases the likelihood that we actually use the checklist. Adding this easy-to-use checklist to your flight deck does not absolve pilots of the responsibility to carry the POH and a copy of the manufacturer approved checklist. Instead, it supplements these important documents in an easy-to-use format. Total cost, less than 50 bucks! Increased visual clearing, situational awareness, and more frequent checklist use, Priceless! 

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