Complacency Hit List When will complacency get you? Here’s a sampling of situations where the “vulture” may strike. Do any of these sound familiar? The mission is complete, and you’re “just going back to the boat.” You’re scheduled for a routine mission, so you don’t plan or thoroughly preflight; several steps or items are omitted. “Groundhog Day” arrives, and repetitive boat ops for extended time leads to lack of desire to continue. You think others will pick up the slack. You trust maintenance will continue the same level of excellence, and after a while, you don’t preflight systems as thoroughly. Repeated “master caution” lights, with no secondaries, lead you to ignore the problem. You preflight survival gear less frequently, because the strobe light flashed or the radio worked just fine yesterday. You trust the AIC controller has sanitized the area, so you don’t stay in the proper altitude blocks. You bring the minimum amount of food and water. Or, you don’t use the head because you’re a single-cycle flight on the schedule. Then the event becomes a triple, and you have that urge. Bad food in port climbs its way out of your gut, but you’re confident you’ll be fine for the yo-yo flight. The same repeat gripe is signed off with “could not duplicate on deck” or “R/R aviator. System works 4.0.” You stop griping and accept the plane “as is.” You stop briefing specific flight assignments because they rarely change, and you’re under the impression that everyone will do it the same way again this time. Two seasoned instructors flying together. Any squadron getting ready to return from deployment. ODO doesn’t stay on top of the flight schedule to completion. Starboard delta; one more time. This is just an admin flight. Just another day trap. We have been crews together for awhile, and we don’t have to brief everything.
May-June 2008
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