Risk Management Magazine

A very dangerous part of the maintenance personnel’s job is the launch and recovery of the Shadow. This incident occurred during the recovery of an aircraft where complacency played a contributing factor and the crew chief was not following the proper procedures.

Sometimes, complacency and inexperience causes us to make less-than-stellar decisions. Thankfully, early experiences and failures in my personal career never led to a loss of life or equipment damage. What it did lead to, though, were lessons in the Army aviation safety risk management process.

Fatigue, minor errors and simple miscommunication is a dangerous combination. I know because it happened to me and could have resulted in a midair accident.