Image Credit: Mentour Pilot
Lining up on a Runway under Construction
Get-there-itis – a potential pilot killer
Pilots often face tremendous pressures. As such, safety at times takes a backseat to getting there on time.
Get-there-itis or get-home-itis means the determination of a pilot to reach a destination even when the conditions for flying are very dangerous.
You may not find this term in any dictionary or medical text but it is an aviation jargon.
A pilot once crashed his plane because of the pressure to return home to see his wife at all cost. It influenced him to do a trans-oceanic flight in turbulent, icing conditions in an overweight plane.
John F. Kennedy Junior who ended up crashing his plane from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard showed his determination to proceed in spite of poor weather at night.
Although such phenomena are confined mostly to pilots of light planes, it can affect larger carriers too, especially in one when there is pressure placed on the captain by a senior officer.
On 10 April 2010, a Russian jet crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 people on board. Among them were the President of Poland and many Government officials.
Investigation found that the accident was the failure of the crew to proceed to an alternate airport despite being warned many times of the poor weather conditions.
The report also found the presence in the cockpit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Air Force who had placed extreme stress and “psychological pressure” on the captain to continue with the landing at any means.
Could pressure due to impending typhoon also give rise to get-there-itis?
Yes, it happened to me on a Boeing 777 out of Shanghai. But I resisted the temptation to take off in the typhoon. This had caused the ire of some passengers who alleged that I did not have the courage to take off when another similar plane parked beside mine had departed.
However, as soon as that plane took off, many others were recalled when the typhoon closed down the airport. I had narrated this story in my first book, Life in the Skies.
On 31 October 2000, a Boeing 747-400 from a major Asian airline flying from Singapore Changi Airport to Los Angeles via the Taipei International Airport attempted to take off from the wrong runway during a typhoon. The plane crashed into the construction equipment on the runway, killing 81 of the 179 people on board.
When the captain took off, his PVD (para visual display) was indicating that he was not on the correct runway. He took off nevertheless, basing it on preconceived ideas rather than on facts, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias in psychology
The captain did not appear rushed in the cockpit voice recorder but if he were speeding up to get in the air and make the destination on time because of the approaching typhoon, that could be a deadly mix.
So, my best tip to pilots is, never be rushed by any pressures and you will live another day to tell the story!
View a YouTube video on ‘What Caused This Boeing 747 Take-off DISASTER?!’ here