Risk Management Magazine

While attending the Aviation Safety Officer Course at Fort Rucker, Alabama, I was reminded of a let’s-not-do-that-again event that occurred while I was deployed to Kosovo in 2012. Such lessons-learned situations shaped how I operated as a young pilot in command.

I was on the roster for one of the initial mixed crews and received a mission not long after starting that night’s duty cycle. It called for us to simply transfer a patient from TQ to a higher level of care in Balad. I considered to this to be a good first mission because it seemed quite routine and would likely be uneventful.

As all Army aviators know, sometimes mission importance outweighs weather minimums. The question then becomes where to draw the line.