It was a horrible day to go flying, but not so bad that I could not sit in the FBO’s lounge and drink hot chocolate while watching the ice pellets ping the windows and rainy snow blow by outside.
There was a King Air on the other side of the window, and I was intrigued by the drama being played out. As the parked aircraft jounced around in the brisk wind and endured an onslaught of what was becoming freezing rain, I saw a man wearing a trench coat over a business suit stalk out and march to his car in the parking lot in an angry huff.
A few minutes later, Jim, the pilot of Cranks-Corp’s Beech business barge, walked into the lobby after making sure that the line crew would be able to put the airplane back in the hangar.
Jim walked over to the coffee pot, poured some, and then flumped down next to me on the couch.
“I wonder if I’ll have a job tomorrow,” he said. “I just told the boss that we couldn’t go flying today, and he was very angry with me because he couldn’t get to Florida.”
Knowing the answer to my question did not keep me from asking it.
“So, what was the problem?”
“Well,” Jim began, “there is nothing wrong with flying today at all if you don’t mind heavy freezing rain, a 30-knot loss-of-airspeed windshear report from a 737 a few minutes ago, and moderate or worse turbulence along with icing forecast and reported from the surface to flight level two-three-oh.
“My boss had a meet-up with, let’s say, a ‘friend’ in Tallahassee, along with what he said was a very important business meeting. He was very intense in his desire to get there both metaphorically and literally.”
Jim finished his coffee and went back out to the plane to retrieve his flight bag. I was alone with my thoughts, and they were troubling.
The most important part of any pilot’s job is saying no. This sounds easy when the concept of pilot-in-command responsibilities comes up in a classroom or on a sunny, smooth day in the cockpit, but it is harder when faced with an irate boss or passengers.
Inexperienced pilots suffer the most from the idea of saying no. If I were braver or more competent, they think, I could get this flight done. To make matters worse, sometimes other pilots do complete their flights successfully on days when you said it is too dangerous.
When you get to be an old pilot like me—and believe me, saying no is one of the best ways to live long enough to be an old pilot—it gets easier. Sure, other pilots may have flown it, but did they do so safely, or were they just lucky? The go/no-go decision should have been easy in the airline world. We had rigid Op/Specs (operation specifications) that kept us up to date on what was legal. If the operation wasn’t legal—for example, a crosswind beyond the airplane’s limitations—we did not go.
It was the few days when we were legal but, in my opinion, not safe, when I earned my money as a captain. I did not have to do it more than a few times because my airline was very good at risk assessment and mitigation, but I like to think that the instances when I threw my possibly cowardly weight around helped keep people safe and alive.
Of course, I had a good company and union protection. The hardest time to say no as a professional pilot is exactly what Jim ran into today. He is young and has a family to feed. Like many small corporation pro pilots, he had no job protection at all, and his youth may have led him to doubt himself, especially since he was operating as a single pilot and had no other flyer to talk with about his concerns and decision.
Sometimes you say no, and later you find out you were wrong. Maybe the weather wasn’t all that bad, or maybe the operation could be done safely with what was broken but legal on the airplane.
I look at problems like that by imagining my testimony at whatever NTSB or FAA enforcement action hearing after the flight I thought was unsafe but took anyway went bad.
This assumes, of course, that I would be alive to give that testimony.
Pilots are goal-oriented and competitive people. Being in command of an airplane is one of the last bastions of pure leadership left in the world, and having the guts to say no when you have to is the most important facet of the job.
God help us if only artificial intelligence is ever allowed to make go/no go decisions without human input.
I finished my self-talk about the same time as my coffee, just as Jim came back in to ask the line crew to please have the airplane back out and ready for tomorrow morning.
It seems the boss called Jim, apologized for getting huffy, and asked if the weather would be good enough tomorrow to fly south.
Maybe it was because he was a good guy, or maybe it was because his car slipped off the road on the way back to the office. Either way, Jim still had a job, the boss was safe, and they would live to fly another day.
The first time you do it it’s a hard conversation, especially if you are young and new to the job.People who buy/rent exec aircraft often dont like being told no by a youngster..
Kevin-
I address you as a PPL SEL without much experience. But I’m also an A&P with 30+ years of airline and GA experience.
The pilot side salutes you for exploring this challenge. But the mechanic side is hoping that with your extensive airline experience and profound and widely respected reputation, you might extend your message to include us in your message. I can recall dozens of times when I could have pencil-whipped a DIL or recently found defect to pushback, but said “NO”.
Thank you, Mr. Garrison.
John Caulkins
Excellent commentary. There’s no concrete metrics that measure lives saved by making a proactive and preemptive decision. No glory at all. But the knowing that all lives involved will have another chance to ‘fly tomorrow’ is all that matters.
you got it
Amen.
What’s the most powerful component of an airplane? It’s not the engine(s), batteries, wing spar, etc. It is the thing that allows you to say no and make it stick. It is the parking brake.
My grandfather taught me early: A “No” takes a second. Saying “Yes” can take a lifetime. This holds water for aviation accidents as well as marriage…
100% agree. What’s easy to say in the classroom on a warm day with the AC on is much more difficult in marginal conditions beside the airplane with the boss and his briefcase in hand. However, as bad as losing a job is when you are young with a family, it is much worse for a young family to lose their breadwinner forever.
I’ve lost a number of friends being coerced by owners to venture weather / airports beyond their level of experience. I was a budding pilot flying out of KFRG. I flew for an owner, of a one of a kind highly decked out, PA-31-350. since the summer of ‘77. The owner was an instrument rated pilot, himself. I flew with him, as safety pilot, for multi day trips, and/or day trips which were IFR.
Day 1, January 1978, a beautiful CAVOK day, KFRG, to KBOS, then to KBDL for the night. Well the next day was different story. We were going to head off to KPNE. A snow event getting underway. I checked the weather with FSS. Perfect storm… not just the snow, but… airport closures or single runway operations. Oh yeah there was mixed icing at all levels. What could possibly go wrong? The owner showed at the FBO. I briefed him then finished… “Not safe to go. We’re not going.” After the usual huff and puff. “If we don’t go, then you’re fired!” My response after, a toss of the keys on the table… “I’m heading back to the hotel and taking the train to Grand Central Station with a subway ride back my apartment.” I went back to the hotel. I called the FBO to see if the owner had departed. The Customer Service Rep told me that he started up, taxied out, and returned to the FBO an shut down. Didn’t hear from him as we had no mobile phones in the days of yore. I had to wait for a couple of days, till mass transit was operational. But, I arrived home safe and sound rather than being an article in the local newspapers. Got a call from this chap a couple of weeks later for another trip. I said “TBNT”. Bottom line folks… your life is not expendable at the cost of a job!
Over the years, I’ve lost friends who were coerced by owners and operators to venture weather / airports beyond their level of experience. In the mid ‘70s I was a budding pilot flying out of KFRG. I flew, a one of a kind highly decked out, PA-31-350. The owner was an instrument rated pilot, himself. I flew with him, as safety pilot, for multi day trips, and/or day trips which were IFR.
Day 1, January 1978, a beautiful CAVOK day, KFRG, to KBOS, then to KBDL for the night. Well the next day was different story. We were going to head off to KPNE. An afternoon snow event was getting underway. I checked the weather with FSS. Perfect storm… not just the snow, but… airport closures or single runway operations. Oh yeah there was mixed icing at all levels. What could possibly go wrong? The owner showed at the FBO. I briefed the situation. I closed with “I’s not safe to go.”. After the usual huff and puff. “If we don’t go, then you’re fired!” My response after, a toss of the keys on the table… “I’m heading back to the hotel. Tomorrow, I’ll take the train to Grand Central, and a subway to to get home.” I went back to the hotel. I called the FBO to see if the owner had departed. The Customer Service Rep told me that he started up, taxied out, and returned to the FBO an shut down. Didn’t hear from the owner. It took a couple of days before rail service was operational. But, I arrived home safe and sound rather than being an article in the local newspapers. Got a call from this chap a couple of weeks later for another trip. I said “TBNT”. Bottom line folks… your life is not expendable at the cost of a job!
Similar thing happens in milair…peer pressure perception as “non-hacker”…pushing past bingo to get aboard boat and not divert, etc. If you do get aboard after being pressured by seniors, all good, if you don’t and go for a swim instead, they’ll be sitting across the long green table demanding to know why you as acft commander didn’t bingo…all that assumes you survived to make it to the table.
…and finally as with many things in life, better to be alive and wrong than correct and dead.
There’s NO and then there’s IF YOU WANT TO FLY INTO DEATH DO IT WITHOUT ME. The pressure to fold under a demanding rich boss is intense – perhaps avoid offering services to such folks until you’re ready willing and able to to say NO. Take a safer route. Fly safe folks.
A superior pilot uses their superior knowledge and experience to avoid situations that would call on their superior skill.
Outstanding…. absolutely, commitment to safety has to be #1. And if the boss fires you over that, at least you will be alive. I’ve flown for jerks like that and I’m never doing that again!
Well said, Kevin.
My matra, which I have never regretted applying, even if my “no go” decision turned out to be unduly conservative, is one that I think all pilots know: I’d rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here.
I flew air ambulance King Airs for a decade in the Midwest. Despite good policies we had in place, many new hires struggled with the added pressure of the lifesaving aspect of the job….”we gotta go save them”. I reiterated to them over and over, “this is not an ambulance that happens to be an airplane, it is an airplane that happens to be an ambulance”. All the same rules of physics, weather, and humans operating any airplane still apply in full. The end benefit was that my medical crewmembers and I developed a deep trust in each other, which made the whole system better.
I also flew air ambulance for several years. The medical crew had a saying when things were iffy – “Better one person dies than four people die.” No situation, outside of a war zone, is so dire that the whole crew should be put at risk.
“There I Was …” hangar tales have served me well for over sixty years of continuous aviating. I’ve heard them since before I soloed my uncle’s Cub at 13 in a rural area of the country far from any FAA presence. I owned an airplane before I owned a car. (The Champ was uninsured; try getting auto insurance at 15.)
In my opinion, the unmistakable theme running through this article, and the responses to it, is that of the corrosive effect of commerce. It’s not always easy to make the ‘go/no-go’ decision when you have your own itinerary, but it’s orders of magnitude more difficult when your paycheck/career has its thumb on the scale.
Early on, I knew to not make flying my career. Not due to any inherent danger, but because I knew that the best way to ruin something that you love to do, is to make it a job. You will be better off finding something you are pretty good at, but could give up if necessary.
At my age, I’ve seen countless examples of this phenomenon in every dangerous vocation. In many cases, burn-out is the preferable outcome.
Good article, Kevin, that has been my mantra for years, “they pay us to say no.”
My other one is, “You don’t pay me for what I do, you pay me for what I CAN do.”
In other words, you don’t pay me all this money to fly you around when it’s CAVU, you pay me for the experience and judgement, and the countless V1 cuts, fires, failures, or other unfortunate malfunctions that pilots like me have had, survived, and trained for for years (in my case 37 now), in the off-chance something bad happens.
I think the right answer when pressured to fly is “Sir, you’re asking me to risk your life. I am not willing to do that, and that’s exactly why you hired me”.
Been there. Great story. Thanks.
When you are working: “yer paid to manage risk, not take it”.
it only gets spicier when you are a Part 135 SIC, and your Captain does not understand when to say NO… God help us!
“How will it look on the accident report?” has kept me from making several dumb decisions in the air. When I actually articulate what would be written, the answer is a lot easier to discern.
This has never worked for me. I can’t fly defensively, second-guessing myself all the time. It undermines my confidence and replaces good think with bad think.
I was scheduled to take a check ride with an FAA inspector to become a Part 141 Assistant Chief Instructor. I was nervous until I worked it out: If I’m doing things properly, as I strive to do, I don’t care who’s in the other seat. I just concentrated on what I was doing and the ride took care of itself.
ok as a ret a&p the same stuff. i would have to down birds. for safety. i did not care what anybody said, it was my ass on the line. without us nobody goes anywhere!!! this are our birds , we just let the pilots use them!! steve c.usn ret.
I wrote an article for an aviation magazine titled, “The Safest Word in Aviation.” It was a heartfelt piece that almost wrote itself.
I taught at a couple of flight schools. I learned quickly that you never know who’s walking in the door. One of the worst scenarios was a guy who wanted a checkout in a pre-owned plane he just bought.
An unknown guy with a a PPL comes in looking to fly his newly purchased Cessna 182 from our airport to another one about thirty miles north.
I check the weather. It’s hovering a little above minimums. This would be an IFR flight both ways. I get in the airplane and gasp. It has a totally nonstandard panel. First strike.
Just for fun, I idly turn on the Master and flip on the landing light. I hear a snap. The LL circuit breaker has popped. I turn the switch off and reset the breaker. It pops again when I turn on the light. Second strike. What other gremlins might be running around in this thing?
The owner swears it had an Annual before he bought it. Well, there are Annuals and annuals. It occurs to me that few prior owners would put in another dollar if they could avoid it once they decided to sell the airplane.
Pretty sure now what I would find, I turn on the elderly GNS 430 and scroll to the system page. The database is over two years old. That alone rules out IFR. This third strike means it’s out. The owner has seen all of this. An Annual excludes the avionics, but he never thought of that.
I have deliberately taken my time to run out the clock. In private, I tell our chief pilot what I found. He tells the client that the school’s time obligation will run out before the trip can be completed. End of story.
I was fully prepared to refuse the flight even if it meant my job. You can get another job, but not another life.
In another instance at another school, they were looking for pilots to fly research flights for a local university. This was unusual because good gigs go fast. Somebody knew something I didn’t, so I never pursued it. A month later the chief pilot and three passengers died when the airplane in slow flight stalled at low altitude and crashed.
When that little voice inside you whispers something is amiss, take heed. It’s your fairy godmother looking out for you.