Formal risk assessment methods?

[bjornhall]

Is anyone using any formal risk assessment methods prior to every flight? Meaning things like risk assessment matrices, quantitative risk assessment flow charts, PAVE, etc?

I don't, and I am a bit torn on the subject. I have looked into it a couple times, and I have not found a way of working with such tools that I like. Most importantly, I find they narrow my thinking, channel my thought process into fixed patterns and checking for the presence of pre-defined risks only, and limit my ability to consider all aspects of the flight. It is also yet another thing to do before each flight...

But on the other hand, in various information circulars, pilot handbooks, accident report recommendations etc, there is a lot of talk about such methods, and how they are highly recommended for use by all pilots, always. E.g., the FAA's Risk Management Handbook, available at Aviation Handbooks & Manuals.

I do not like having such a mismatch between what I do, and what the FAA et al recommend that I do. One would assume they know a good deal more about aviation than I do, so it is presumably they who have it right.

So I am wondering if anyone else have any experience of actually using these types of tools, not just once to try it out, but routinely? Anyone who finds them useful? If so, how do you use them?

[2hotwot]

The FAA documents seem to be offered as a source of training and awareness in a risk management process. Probably not best suited to reading in the cockpit!
Look for some links for Threat and Error Management (TEM) which is training on an in-cockpit process which can lead to better hazard management in real situations.

[Shunter]

risk assessment matrices, quantitative risk assessment flow charts, PAVE

WTF?

My pre-flight risk assessment goes like this:

1. Is the aeroplane is satisfactory working order?
2. Are the weather conditions within the limits of both myself and the aeroplane?
3. Do I have plenty of fuel?
4. Do I have the necessary equipment for the terrain to be overflown (lifejackets etc)?

If the answer to all the above is yes, we go. If not, we don't. Common sense is highly underrated in my opinion, although as I'm sure many will point out, common sense is not very common.

[bjornhall]

Shunter, that is how I do it too. It has its pros and cons though, and if there are better methods I want to use them. But I do not understand how to employ the methods I mentioned in practice, so I can not say that our method (which I am sure 99.9999% of all private pilots use, with varying success...) is better. I need to understand them first.

"Common sense", IMV, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for safe flight.

2hotwot, I do not quite understand your comment... TEM is a subset of what the FAA document I referenced deals with. I don't suppose anyone is suggesting reading TEM handbooks in the cockpit as a risk management practice?!

[BackPacker]

I don't suppose anyone is suggesting reading TEM handbooks in the cockpit as a risk management practice?!

When I'm passenger on a long haul flight I'd rather have the crew up front read TEM handbooks than dying of boredom.

Seriously though, what you will probably find is that a large number of those risk assessments are geared towards industrial production and apply statistics gathered from a large number of production runs. Because of this, these methods would work fine for very large organizations like the CAA (assessing the impact of certain measures that need to be taken cross-industry) but are rather less suited for an individual pilot who needs to make a go/no-go decision for a specific flight.

[IO540]

If you looked at aviation risk seriously, the first thing you would do is tear up your license

[Fly-by-Wife]

Is anyone using any formal risk assessment methods prior to every flight? Meaning things like risk assessment matrices, quantitative risk assessment flow charts, PAVE, etc?

SLEDGEHAMMER

nut

FBW

[what next]

When I'm passenger on a long haul flight I'd rather have the crew up front read TEM handbooks than dying of boredom

You mean: Dying of boredom from reading the TEM handbooks

But also seriously: Most of this is built into operating procedures and safety factors when flying commercially. There is a given set of rules that must be complied with (e.g. weather forecast at destination _and_ alternate airport must meet the required minima) - and when all required criteria are met, the flight will be conducted. I can only recommend private pilots to look into those rules (JAR-OPS and EU-OPS in Europe) and apply them to private flying as well. These rules are the result of a very large risk assessment study made once for all, so to say! If one sticks to them, there is no need to do specific risk assessment before every flight.

Greetings, Max

[JD02FLY]

The world is Fu**ed..... Live now pay later....

[FlyingOfficerKite]

I agree with IO540.

As an aside, it's funny how women are attracted to you when they find out that you are a pilot - but when they find out about flying they spend all their time talking you out of being a pilot!!!

Moral - ask a woman about risk assessment methods in aviation and the answer would be 'stay at home, don't do it!'.

KR

FOK

[Whopity]

In 1917 a man called Robert Smith-Barry proposed a new method of flying training:

The curriculum at Gosport was based upon a combination of academic classroom training and dual flight instruction. He was clear in stressing that students were not to be led away from potentially dangerous manoeuvres (THREATS) but were instead to be exposed to them in a controlled environment in order that the student could learn to recover from (ERRORS) of judgement.

Thus it can bee seen that TEM is now over 90 years old and is probably better known by most aviators as AIRMANSHIP!

[mad_jock]

Or as one Captain said to an official of an airport asking for the risk assessment of us parking into wind on a stand designed to go nose (with wind up the bum) in but we could spin round on.

No I don't have one. And neither do I have one for throwing 10 tonnes of aircraft at a runway at over 140mph in the pissing rain in 50mph winds now off.

If you really want to see risk assessment taken to extreme have a search on the web for the CFIT risk assessment form from some bunch in the US (you get shown it in EGPWS training). You would need a 2 hour report and a calculator to fill the bloody thing in and that's just one sector.

[bjornhall]

mad_jock, I suppose you are talking about the FSF's CFIT analysis form. I agree, those are precisely the types of tools that probably look good in a research article but are rather impractical IRL.

EU-OPS places a lot of requirements on "the operator", which in this case would be me. I think writing an operations manual detailing my operating procedures is a bit of an overkill, for instance... I like the idea of flying to the higher standards of the professional world if practical, but I do not think it is very practical.

As I said, I also do not use these 'formal' methods and do not quite see the point of them... Am still curious if there is anyone out there who does tho'!

For me, flight safety is not mainly about avoiding accidents; one can fly to a pretty low standard and still have only a very small risk of having a serious accident. To me, operating in a safe, professional manner is a goal in itself; I do it, and want to improve in it, simply because it interests me.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I use formal risk assessment methods a lot for professional purposes - for example planning test flying, taking work teams to "complicated" parts of the world, and so-on.

However, the place for this is NOT where I'm about to embark upon an individual flight. There are good practice / CRM / Airmanship techniques to use before a flight - these can pretty much be bracketed under the heading of "checklists".

However, to start thinking hard about things like risk assessment matrices before an individual flight means that you aren't thinking properly about the detail of the flight - it's a time for simpler tools.

G

[bookworm]

Is anyone using any formal risk assessment methods prior to every flight? Meaning things like risk assessment matrices, quantitative risk assessment flow charts, PAVE, etc?

There are many models that are useful in flying that we don't necessarily apply explicitly on every flight. For example, when I understood the relationship between pitch, power, configuration and performance, my instrument flying got much better. But I don't do detailed calculations of power and pitch required every time I fly an ILS -- I use rules of thumb and experience that are consistent with the model.

I think you should use these risk assessment models in a similar way. There are principles that can be introduced to your mental models without running through explicit process models. The quotation from the introduction of the FAA handbook is a good start:

“A key element of risk decision-making is determining if the risk is justified.”

Risk is an inevitable aspect of flying, but it's important that judgements about risk are made rationally, not from ignorance of the risk factors, so that we recognise when the risk starts to become unacceptable. The tools are designed to raise awareness of hazards and to support the rational analysis of whether the associated risk is acceptable.

[mad_jock]

I like the idea of flying to the higher standards of the professional world if practical, but I do not think it is very practical.

Why don't you think its pratical? There is nothing magical in the way we operate commercially. In fact in someways because you don't have commercial pressures a private has a lower risk.

If the wx is legal I am expected to go or have a very good reason not to. Private can just say sod that for a lark and go to the pub.

The biggest risk is your own experence. The most risky bit of the whole package is you the pilot and your planning and choices in flight. Yes some commercial pilots have out of cockpit checklists for particular jobs.

If your flying a route you don't bother with anything extra you check the wx find out the pax numbers, check the log accept it, load your fuel, do your M&B and performance and bugger off.

A charter some people use a checklist

Flight plans in, catering, handling, airport openings times, fuel availabilty, who's the crew, duty time limits for crew, pax contact numbers,broker contact numbers, prefered divert options and then into the stuff you would do for a normal schedual route.

As you can see not much spent on the actual flying the machine its all in the planning. Only about 10% of my job as a commercial Captain is anything to do with poling the aircraft around the sky. 90% of it spent on arse covering and the point when you get the gear up is the point when you can start enjoying your job without the multitude of potential cockups mugging you with out any warning. An engine shut down followed by single engine approach is far less stressful than dealing with some dozy bitch of a ramp cop thats got it into her head that you have transgressed some very important rule which is meant to be universal but you have never heard of in any other airport in the UK and there is no documentaion for. If you want to experence this fly to Norwich and see what I mean.

[bjornhall]

Why don't you think its pratical? There is nothing magical in the way we operate commercially. In fact in someways because you don't have commercial pressures a private has a lower risk.

I think you answer that yourself in the rest of your post... So much of a professional regulation, such as EU-OPS, is totally irrelevant for private flying. The first thing one would have to do, IMV, is to write (cut and paste) those few parts that are relevant, leaving out gems like ETOPS reserves, admission to flight deck, crew member interphone systems etc etc etc etc. About 3% of the document would remain, and 90% of those 3 % would be the painfully obvious things like W&B calculations. Probably the only useful thing remaining would be the duty time limitations.

At the same time, a private pilot/operator is allowed to, and supposed to, choose his own risk level. What level of safety the regulator considers appropriate to the fare paying public has nothing whatsoever to do with what risk level I consider acceptable for myself or my passengers (if any).

Then there are many other aspects that are more risky in private, light GA flying, that are not covered in the professional regulations. We need to be able to assess our risk levels when flying with pilots (ourselves!), aircraft and airfields that would be considered inadequate for commercial flying. The commercial regulations then only say "you can't do this", which is of little help to us who will do it anyway and need some method to assess the risk level in doing so.

That, in brief, is why I do not consider the professional and commercial rule books as of much help to private pilots. We need our own methods, tools and guidance (not regulations!), tailored for our own needs. Manuals like the Risk Management Handbook is probably the right way of doing that, and I think bookworm describes the right way of using it for private flight.

But for day to day use, I agree with the rest of you that the tools illustrated there are not well suited. Which is fine I suppose, since it means we're doing it right already!

But there are those who say, in such guidance material, that quantitative risk assessment tools in the form of matrices should be used for each flight. I will just consider them to be wrong for the time being, until someone can explain why it is a good idea. So far we seem to agree it is not!

[S-Works]

Have I lost the plot here?? What on earth are we talking about?

How about this for an idea, it is fun, loo out the window, check the weather, go and have fun. We don't even go through that palava at work, I would certainly not being doing it for a fun flight.

[DB6]

What a load of crap! Why would you willingly bog yourself down in bureaucratic rubbish that has no place in the real world? Not everything you do has to be dictated by lawyers and no-win, no-fee parasitic toilet paper deposits. I despair .
Oh, and no, I don't use a formal risk assessment method prior to every flight.

[gpn01]

I don't use a formal risk assessment method and instead make a reasoned guess and then make a judgement call.

Conceptually it would be an interesting exercise to establish the risk parameters and develop some software that would provide a go/no go decision. Only problem I forsee is that it would always say NO!

I suspect that if your question is as a result of anything other than idle curiousity then you may wish to consider whether flying is really for you as you should be in a permanent state of risk analysis/decision making/review. If you ever feel that you're not in this loop at any stage of a flight....then maybe you should re-evaluate the situation :-)