A Chick in the Cockpit Read Free

who was supposed to be teaching us asked, “Well, what isn’t working?”
    I glanced back at the engineer panels to make sure all the emergency lights were extinguished and that the cabin was pressurizing before answering. “All systems are back on-line and functioning,” I quietly and respectfully replied for fear of retaliation to the abrupt statement a few moments ago. The irony is that the emergency didn’t make me nervous; it was my bold statement to the captains that was now frazzling my nerves.
    â€œWell, there really isn’t an exact checklist for what just happened. It was completely pilot induced. Let’s complete the checklist for each individual emergency to make sure we covered it. Everything is running as it should be so I think we’re good to continue. We’ll have the mechanics give it a once over back in Minneapolis. I’ll make an announcement to the passengers about the big bang, I’m sure they all shit their pants by now.”
    After we finished the checklists, Mick started to turn around, but he abruptly turned back to me and with a smirk on his face said, “Hey, Erika, by the way, thanks for growing some big hairy balls back there and setting us straight. You did the right thing.” Mick then gave me a big grin, went back to his duties, and neither of them ever said anything else about it.
    In that moment, two things clicked in my brain: First, I felt like a real pilot. Sure, I’d been a pilot for years, had thousands of hours already, and had been in several emergency situations, but here is where it paid off. Even though I was a novice in this airplane, and I didn’t even get to “fly” it, I knew what I was seeing and what to do despite never having trained for anything like it before. We had briefed for a normal departure and everything fell apart, but it was something I could deal with because I used my pilot mindset to keep us flying.
    Secondly, I realized I was forceful and spoke my mind for once and the result was okay. I saw the situation would become worse if I stuck to my usual habit of explaining myself and my actions, so I took a giant leap and said what needed to be said. Just fly the fucking airplane, and then run the checklist.
    Just being able to get to the emergency checklist often means survival. By the time you reach for this checklist, damage has already been done, so the point is to work on the problem together. This incident began to teach me that life and aircraft are way more complicated than what is neatly laid out on the pages of a checklist. There really wasn’t a checklist that conformed to this exact emergency. The aircraft manufacturer hadn’t thought about the pilot who is distracted by thinking about mountains so, by accident, he turns too quickly, climbs too quickly, and pulls up the flaps too quickly. The complicated set of emergency checklists that are put in the flight deck sometimes don’t get used as intended in the real world. They are a logical starting point but in actuality, it is best to absorb everything that is going on around you and then put it all together before reacting.
    Despite the emergency checklists provided for abnormalities, it’s the standard checklists that you use before you begin your flight that often determine whether you live or come crashing down in a pile of mistakes.

2 Checklists and Checkpoints
    1. Seatbelts – fastened
    2. Parking brake – set
    3. Head out of ass – check
    Checklists and knowing where you are in the aviation world are vital. These “checks” are potentially the difference between life and death if you mess them up or get the items out of order. If, for example, you miss a checkpoint, the side of a mountain might clarify your position for you.
    The objective of a standard checklist is to have the pilot complete the task on their own, and then use the checklist to go back and check to make sure the lists and points