I thought this article expressed a lot of good concepts clearly for GA pilots:
In particular I liked this section:
The CAIB urged NASA to model itself after High Reliability Organizations (HROs)—naval carriers, nuclear plants, air traffic control (ATC) centers. These organizations succeed in dangerous domains by cultivating specific traits. GA pilots can adopt the same mindset:
» Preoccupation with failure: Treat every small anomaly as a potential precursor.
» Reluctance to simplify: Resist the urge to call a flickering warning light a “glitch.” Dig deeper.
» Sensitivity to operations: Stay engaged even when the autopilot flies. Monitor trends, scan instruments, and stay ahead.
» Resilience: Train for the unexpected—partial panel, alternator failures, inadvertent IMC.
» Deference to expertise: Respect your mechanic’s judgment, your instructor’s caution, or your own inner voice that whispers “something feels off.”
Great tips there @RufusXS! I hope we do learn from Columbia, because we sure as hell didn’t after Challenger. Seven more people had to die, seven people with most of their lives left, people with families, good people whose knowledge and expertise shouldn’t have been wiped out so soon. It’s always the people with everything left to live for who seem to become victims in tragedies like this.
As with Challenger, the warnings were there. NASA didn’t see the need to take action. Those people could have been brought back alive on a Soyez spacecraft. But because they’d had foam shed in the launch before and nothing had happened, it became the very thing Hoover is always talking about - normalisation of deviance.
If you’re looking a very in depth and uniquely well written piece on this tragedy search on William Langewiesche/columbia. Check the date it was written.
@Cfichuck hello and welcome! Thank you for this recommendation, I’ll put that title on a list of books to read. I’m interested in both Shuttle accidents.
