BAG OF LUCK
I am convinced that people are given an invisible bag filled with good luck on the day of their birth, much like the popular myth that a cat has nine lives. We were also equipped with a good measure of common sense at the same time. If we continually dip into the bag of luck to save ourselves from bad situations instead of using good sense to avoid them, not only will our guardian angels begin to frown upon us, our bag of luck will also soon be emptied. This will usually happen at a time when we least expect it.
Here’s an example - an infant crawls across a busy road and makes it to the other side unharmed but the chance of surviving any subsequent crossings reduces exponentially and now it is only a matter of time until he expires. Why, because each time a vehicle misses him some luck is drawn from his bag of luck until there is no more luck remaining in the bag. Is the fact that he now no longer exists bad luck? What of the person assigned to take care of the child? Was it bad luck on their part or sheer negligence and poor situational awareness for not ensuring the child’s whereabouts and/or assessing the potential hazards while he/she was on a lengthy phone call to a pal? You see, the child’s charge relied on the good luck that he would remain in the sandpit at the back of the house as he always did and that he would venture no further. The fact that the child always played in and never left the sandpit was taken for granted. Luck, my friends, is like an elastic band and will stretch until it finally snaps. Have you ever heard one person saying to another “now you’re stretching your luck”?
Consider the following scenario – every night you get up to visit the white ceramic commodity down the passage. You are considerate to your partner and so you don’t switch the light on – you know your way around in the dark well enough. Every night you make it back to bed without incidence but not this night - It is cold – you move faster than usual and you walk flat bang into the passage door and almost gouge your left eye out on the coat hook attached to the back of the door. “Damn it!” you lament “what the hell, this door is always open, why is it #$^*+@% shut” Your spouse who you now see seven of because of the injury done to your eye, switches on the light in a state of utter shock and confusion.
Yes this door is always open but tonight it is closed – so what – doors can be open or closed – they don’t care a twitch - nothing abnormal. Who’s’ fault is this? Your partners for closing the door? Or had the wind blown it to?
You see – every other night you had lucked it out and had taken it for granted that the door would be open – you became complacent. The blame lies squarely on your shoulders, my friend – no ifs and buts – poor situational awareness!
What options were available to you? You could have used a torch - you could have outstretched your arms to feel ahead of you – you could have gone a bit slower!!! At least you might have considered that the door could be closed!
By the way you should get that prostrate checked out as well!
The exact same principles apply to flying aeroplanes – are we complacent? Do we leave a lot to luck? Do we take things for granted? Or do we plan sensibly and consider the options available to us?
Jim is a company pilot and he knows the passengers well. He is tasked to fly four passengers from Lanseria to Durban – no problem – done this a hundred times before. Jim doesn’t bother too much to study the Met – he’s in too much of a hurry – he figures that since the weather had been good in the region for the past few weeks or at least yesterday when he was last there, there shouldn’t be much change – just a bit of cloud about maybe. Besides – hey, he had all the approach plates for Durban. Although he hadn’t complied with his IFR recency in the last three months, he thought himself to be a pretty slick operator. He filed Richards Bay as an alternative since to some extent this would also suite the pax in terms of alternative arrangements that could be made to get them to their final destination, which is on the coast a fair distance north of Durban.
Around Ladysmith he enters a solid bank of cloud, both engines are running sweet as a babies bum and decides to copy the Durban ATIS. Bad news Durbs is down and below minima – He establishes contact with his ATC friend at Virginia Tower who confirms the present weather at Durban International matches that as advertised on the ATIS with no improvement expected but instead a marked deterioration is forecast. Virginia he says is way below minima as a diversion.
Reluctantly he informs ATC and the pax of his intentions and sets up his GPS nav. Equipment (“jolly good stuff, this GPS. No more need for maps and charts” he thinks) accordingly and alters course for Richards Bay where the weather is bound to be better – not sure though – didn’t check the details but reasons that if the weather was O.K. yesterday, the bad weather had probably only arrived recently in Durban and would be moving up the coast to reach Richards Bay much later – “shouldn’t be a problem getting in on the NDB if there’s a bit of weather about” he thinks. Things are getting a bit rough at his present flight level - turbulence and considerable icing. The placard attached to the instrument panel that reads “ THIS AIRCRAFT NOT TO BE OPERATED INTO KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS” taunts Jim, he flicks the switch labeled “pitot heat” to the on position - this is the only “hot stuff” that this aircraft has. He requests a lower level and manages to dissipate the airframe ice – good job.
Still in solid cloud with a fair amount of rain now and substantial turbulence, Jim thinks to himself “ Must ask the owner to get a storm scope fitted to this old bucket of rivets sometime”.
He hauls his Jep manual from his flight bag and flips it open on Richards Bay only to find to his astonishment that the approach plates he needs aren’t there. Jim wonders where they might be, then, he remembers that when he was updating his Jep the other night he took the old Richards Bay plates out of the manual and then went out for a beer with the intention of replacing them with the new ones when he returned but forgot to do so.
“O.K. – O.K” he thinks “ I know the ATC quite well at Richards Bay and I’ll ask him to run over the cloud break procedure with me – that’s if its’ needed”.
Jim requests decent from JHB East and is handed over to frequency 118.9 Richards Bay for the approach. The time is now 16:48z. It turns out that Jim doesn’t need the approach plates or any info of this nature from ATC since the weather is still fine at Richards at the moment with a 4,000’ base and visibility better than 10 km but is forecast to change for the worse within the next hour – dew point and temperature are closing.
Jim carries out the visual approach and lands without further incident.
He bids farewell to the passengers who were in his care today much like the infant playing in the sand-pit was in the care of his care-taker. One of the pax yells as he leaves “ Thanks Jim, good pilot, good landing, see you next weeks in Durbs for our pick-up!”
Jim steps up to the tower to say hi to the ATC. He reaches the top of the stairs to find the door locked and nobody in the tower – “strange” he thinks as far as he knew the hours of operation were until 18:00z He looks at his watch, the time is now 17:12z. A Notam pinned to the door attracts his attention, it reads “ As of the 01/01/2007 HOD. MON – FRI. 05:00z TO 17:00z”. Today is the 15/01/2007.
He shakes his head and strolls away thinking that he must refuel in the morning because his aircraft is pretty low on fuel now. He hadn’t taken on much fuel at Lanseria since remember the weather was going to be fine in Durban and he wanted to tank in Durban – much cheaper. How many times during this flight can you count that Jim dipped into his bag of luck and how many times did he take things for granted. I wonder how much luck Jim has left in his bag of luck?
Sure bad luck does happen, for example, the designer and manufacturer of an aircraft go to great lengths to ensure that the materials used for and the design of the undercarriage system make it as safe as possible. The aircraft Engineer painstakingly inspects and maintains the system. The pilot does a thorough preflight and understands the system and limitations intimately well. Still something goes awry, the result a wheels up landing due to failure of a vital component or the pilot honestly forgetting to extend the undercarriage due a number of very real causes, believe me this can happen to the very best.
This is excusable but Jims’ behaviour is not.
CONCLUSION
On all accounts one should attempt never to rely on ones ‘superior skill’ to compensate for poor planning or to rely on luck because you might reach into your bag of luck to find it empty.
Of course we operate in a dynamic and changing environment but we can anticipate and think ahead in order to assess and manage the risks involved and make sound decisions in an intelligent, educated and responsible way.
We owe it to those who entrust their lives to us, if not to ourselves.
Taking things for granted and complacency must have no place in aviation.
The harder you work at it the luckier you get! (That’s what Garry Player had to say about golf.)
By Chris Kyle
None of the above relates to actual events or to any person but was created to put a point across in the interest of flying safety
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