Risk Management Magazine

Day-to-day operational activities seem to always provide opportunities for flight crews to grow complacent. Although there is no intent to arbitrarily shortcut proper maintenance procedures, isolated incidents or aircraft discrepancies that are relatively simple to rectify often get corrected using improper tooling, maintenance practices, personnel and documentation.

The weather forecast was typical of a warm, North Carolina spring afternoon — visibility was great with 10 miles and a 30 percent chance of isolated thunderstorms. We had based our mission operations out of a local airport. As lead aircraft in a flight of three Black Hawks, we were completing our last leg of what was considered a routine infiltration/exfiltration mission.

Before becoming an aviator, I served as a flight engineer on a CH-47D Chinook. Our mission that summer day was a simple, routine night vision goggle flight with a couple of very experienced pilots on the controls.