Risk Management
The hazard-and-risk framework, personal minimums, and the accident chain. Naming risk out loud so it can be broken before it links.
The Accident Chain
Accident investigators keep finding the same pattern: five or six individually manageable errors, linked together. The pilot's job is not to be perfect. It is to break the chain.
- ADMAeronautical Decision-Making
The systematic approach to consistently determining the best course of action in response to a given set of circumstances.
- PAVEPreflight risk checklist
A mnemonic — Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External pressures — for structured preflight risk assessment.
- IMSAFEPersonal readiness checklist
A mnemonic — Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Emotion — for pilot self-assessment before every flight.
- Accident ChainLinked sequence of failures
The set of individually manageable errors, hazards, and decisions that link together to produce an accident.
- Continuation BiasPlan-continuation error
The tendency to press on with the original plan in the face of mounting cues that it is no longer safe.
- Personal MinimumsSelf-imposed operating limits
A pilot's own limits — ceiling, visibility, crosswind, night currency — set higher than regulatory minimums to preserve margin for actual proficiency.