AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - March 2025 - 97

retraction altitude to 1,000 feet.
* Keep it simple: Manage workload
to avoid trying to do two or three
things at once. For the last 1,000
feet of climb or descent, don't do
anything but fly and monitor the
airplane. Load that approach either
before or after.
* Detect and correct: We're still going
to distract ourselves and forget to
do something once in a while. Use a
checklist to catch the mistake.
It's another day, this one not-so-beautiful.
My destination is straight ahead and
there are thunderstorms in the area. The
Cirrus has a great weather radar display,
and it's showing a red cell northwest of the
field. The airport is good VFR with calm
winds. I have it in sight with a clear shot
to Runway 5. Good to go! I turn final, and I
keep the speed up just in case.
Checking the storm on the radar, I
can see that the red is showing patches of
yellow. It looks like the storm is dissipating.
That's an encouraging trend. Just to
be sure, I put the radar image in motion.
The storm is moving southeast, it seems
to be moving slowly, and I can clearly see
some red turning to yellow, especially at
the edges. This is fine news, so I keep on.
Now I'm at 600 feet, on profile. The
tower transmits, " Cirrus 52X, wind three
three zero at 20 gusting 30. " As I cross the
threshold, the ride gets really wild. I have to
throw in full sidestick left and up to touch
down in the correct attitude. Unloading my
luggage from the airplane a few minutes
later, I get soaked in the downpour. How
could I have misread those signs?
Confirmation bias
A cognitive psychologist, comfortably
seated in a coffee shop that's not bouncing
around and trying to touch the ground
nose-low and wing-down, would recognize
the seeds of my storm encounter as
confirmation bias. I looked at the storm to
the northwest and had the airport in sight,
and I decided the storm was not a threat.
That became my interpretation of reality.
Next, I turned to the weather radar display.
What stuck out to me was the slow cell
movement and its dissipating intensity, and
that made me feel good about continuing.
I thought I was being extra careful, checking
the radar. Without realizing it, though, I
was also looking for reasons to keep believing
it was correct to continue the approach.
The psychologist would say that it's human
nature for all of us, including pilots, to seek
out information that confirms what we
already believe.
I then got the tower's report of gusty
wind conditions. This didn't trigger the
thought that the wind was part of the thunderstorm.
I didn't put together the new
reality that the thunderstorm had arrived
at the field before I had. In confirmation
bias, we also tend to downplay, or not even
recognize, information that contradicts our
current interpretation of the situation.
This is one of the reasons why, once we've
made up our minds about something, it's
awfully hard to dislodge what we've been
thinking and change.
Tips
* Recognize that confirmation bias is
always there. We can't eliminate it.
Trust yourself, but verify.
* Seek out trouble. Actively look for
signs that you might be wrong.
* Wait a minute! Confirmation bias
makes it hard to recognize you are
going astray. If you have a co-pilot
or right-seat passenger, be open to
them. If not, do your best, on your
own. Force yourself to be open to
new information that doesn't fit
what you are thinking.
This time the thunderstorms are en
route, in a solid line across my course. I'm
looking at the weather radar display and
trying to figure out how to get through,
or whether to turn around. There's a hole
about 30 degrees left. It's a little tight and
downwind of one of the storms. I decide to
give it a try. The ride is a little bumpy, with
some moderate rain, but after a few minutes
I break into bright sunshine. Winner!
A couple of months later, here's another
line of storms to cross or avoid. Once again,
there is a hole. The radar looks okay, so I
decide to go through. This time, though,
the ride downwind of the displayed cell is
terrible, and there are strong updrafts and
downdrafts. I'm really sorry to be in there.
How did I get there?
Normalized deviance
Cutting close to thunderstorms and relying
on radar composites that might be
10 to 20 minutes old when displayed in
the aircraft is taking a risk. You can take
a risk and not pay the price-most of the
time the hole in the weather will be wide
enough, the storm not moving or developing
quickly enough.
It's human nature. Every time we
take a risk and get away with it, our risk/
reward matrix tilts toward taking that risk
again. This is called normalized deviance,
because bit-by-bit what was deviant can
become our new normal. If it worked last
time, we're more likely to do it again. It
only works in reverse if we scare ourselves
badly enough to tilt our internal
matrix the other way.
Without our awareness, the bias can
develop gradually over time. It's a creeping
reduction of safety margins, until it's
something even worse.
Tips
* Recognize when you're rolling the
dice, even if it " usually works out
fine. " It only takes coming up snakeeyes
once to make it a really bad
day, or last day.
* Imagine the downside risks.
* Read accident reports, talk to other
pilots, and look back on how you
used to do things, to spot adverse
trends. Break the chain.
* Stick with procedural guardrails,
such as distance from storms and
personal minimums. You will fly
some extra miles, but that's what
a safety margin is. Keep your margins,
you may need them.
These are just a few of the reasons why,
as pilots who are human beings, we make
mistakes. Because we can't eliminate our
mistakes, we have to focus on catching them
when we can and avoiding their circumstances
to the max-whether it's changing
our routines to limit distractions, working
hard to be open to a new interpretation of
reality, or stopping ourselves from going
down a slippery slope to normalizing flying
that can bite. Ben Berman is a former
airline captain, NTSB accident investigator,
and NASA human factors researcher.
AOPA PILOT / March 2025
97
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - March 2025

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