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It is zero-dark-thirty on a Saturday morning and you’re starting the car to drive to your weekend drill. As you set your coffee in the cupholder, did you realize you were already on duty?
Risk management, safety and constant planning are a way of life for the military, but so are chaos, deadlines, demands and stress. When leaders forget to follow basic principles, people could get hurt or killed.
Everything was going fine until my cellphone rang. We had just had an accident on the flight line. One of our pilots partially degloved his finger as he was stepping down from the cockpit of a UH-60 and the medics were taking him to the hospital.
As aviators and crewmembers, we are highly trained professionals. We are expected to operate with great attention to detail. But once we are off duty, why do we find ourselves taking risks we might not take on duty?
In certain situations, such as time-sensitive operations, there may be pressure to complete missions swiftly. This can result in shortcuts or compromises in safety procedures for the sake of mission accomplishment.
Looking back, I realize how lucky I was I didn’t kill myself. The truth is I was safer jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft than I was riding on that motorcycle. I’d been trained to jump out of airplanes, but I hadn’t been trained to ride a motorcycle.