I am a big believer in always following procedures when engaged in certain dangerous (or potentially dangerous) activities. That way you train yourself – your body and your mind – to act and think in a certain way, even if you are scared, tired, in danger, or otherwise in distress.
The military trains its people that way; law enforcement as well; and pilots also. Follow standard operating procedures – and never deviating from them – means that you can focus your mental energies on pressing matters, without wasting time or thought on things that you don’t need to.
So you should always follow standard procedures and never deviate from them.
But the real genius in life – knowing when not to follow those procedures.
During the Battle of the Philippine Sea in World War II, US carriers launched a late-day strike on the Japanese forces. The US strike force was low on fuel and returning to their carriers as night fell. One of the biggest challenges in WWII carrier operations was just finding the launching carriers on the featureless sea, which could have moved 30 miles or more – and whose aircraft were generally using inertial navigation and nothing better.
Standard procedures for US ships in WWII were to be blacked out at night – really, that went back for hundreds of years for naval ships. This protected ships from being sighted by the enemy – and the enemy in WWII for carriers were enemy aircraft and enemy submarines. Two US fleet carriers were sunk by Japanese submarines during WWII, for instance, and two Japanese fleet carriers were sunk by US submarines during this battle.
So what did the US fleet do when faced with the prospect of a bunch of lost – and crashing – US aircraft returning from their strike? Ignoring the threat of Japanese subs and night-flying aircraft, and contrary to all policies, procedures, and doctrines, they turned on every floodlight they could in the fleet, shining their searchlights up into the sky so that the returning US aircraft could find the fleet at night. US aircraft landed on the nearest carrier, regardless of their home carrier, and many pilots ditched safely within the perimeter of the US fleet.
Of over 200 US aircraft launched, 115 US aircraft returned; 20 were lost to enemy action in the attack, and 80 ditched because they ran out of fuel. Of those 80 that ditched, about 3/4 of the pilots were rescued.
I’ve gone down some YouTube-holes lately watching videos about private pilots. My son recently got his private pilots license and there are some really good YouTube channels out there. Many of the videos highlight aircraft mishaps or near mishaps with a discussion of the mistakes made and lessons learned. Other videos simply play the recorded communications along with a good map showing the location of the flights. Some of the funnier videos include pilots getting ornery with each other or, less often, air traffic control.
One of the most important things when flying is communication. The mantra for a pilot is to 1) aviate, 2) navigate, and 3) communicate.
Communication is key around airports – around controlled airports, a pilot’s course is controlled by air traffic control. And with many aircraft in the air, communication must be precise, intentional, and brief. There are a limited number of commands that can be given, and the pilot should acknowledge them all by rule and regulation.
Part of that communication is the use of callsigns – which are either the tail number for general aviation or the flight number for commercial aviation.
I stumbled on this video last week about a pilot-in-training on her third solo flight. She loses her nosewheel on takeoff. When notified about the loss of the nosewheel she is noticeably frightened and nervous, but she is able to fall back on radio procedures to make it easier for her and ATC to communicate. It’s certainly a scary situation, as she knows that, at best, she will have a very rough landing. A few other nearby pilots come up onto the net and help talk her through the landing procedures, since she’ll need to stay nose-up as long as she can upon touchdown.
But maybe the most subtly brilliant actions that another pilot takes to help her: instead of sticking to impersonal callsigns when talking to her, sticking with tried-and-true procedures, he asks her name. And for the rest of the flight, they humanize her and her situation, relate to her, and even talk about her plans for lunch and her future piloting plans.
Taylor safely landed the plane (with some damage) – and even commented on the video, thanking Chris and the ATC for their help!
This is the excellent video with the ATC map and audio that really tells the story:
And this is a news report that includes footage of Taylor’s landing:
