Drew McKinnie
Safety Manager
CHANGING THE FLIGHT PLAN
Have you ever planned a flight, set off, found unfavourable conditions and setbacks, and wondered whether to press on, or to modify the plan, or to come back and try again on another day? Sometimes we are tempted to press ahead and it doesn’t work out.
Plan Continuation Bias affects many pilots. If something goes wrong inflight, we can find ourselves accepting those setbacks or hazards or defects or preparation deficiencies, and despite increasing evidence suggesting turnback or replan options might be better, we continue with the original plan. It’s a form of press-on-itis.
I am not suggesting we should not stretch ourselves, work hard on a tougher than expected day, or attempt a demanding badge or competition flight. Nevertheless, I know the best coaches and competition pilots have great assessment skills and thresholds where they resort to alternative plans. Good airmanship and high performance require flexibility, adaptation, replanning based upon safe decisions.
As we come into our summer soaring season, please listen to the inner voice.
SO WE CHANGED THE FLIGHT PLAN FOR THE SAFETY EVENT
The GAus team had planned a mid-October Human Factors Safety and Clubs Round Table Event, to be held face-to-face in Melbourne plus online. We had a great programme lined up, with sponsorship, top speakers and workshops. It was a good plan, until some some setbacks arose.
Facing increasing technical complexity and costs, we also lost one of our keynote speakers due to injury. Travel, competing commitments and timing pressures affected other speakers, registrations were slow and, meanwhile, logistics and coordination issues emerged.
As a result, we reassessed the mission, our task. The value proposition for members was our highest priority, along with returning value for CASA sponsors and workshop participants. It was a metter of risk versus reward, and quality of outcomes versus cost and schedule. Ultimately, the decision was made to replan, postpone the task and try again later. The event will now happen in 2026, after summer soaring season, with dates and venue or venues to be confirmed. Our Board and Executive, external participants and speakers remain keen to make this work.
GLIDING SECTOR SAFETY RISK PROFILE
We had also planned to have a CASA-sponsored Sector Safety Risk Profile (SSRP) workshop on gliding and glider towing safety as part of the Human Factors Safety Event. CASA has performed a number of these on various aviation activities such as agricultural and aerial application, business aviation, air displays, parachuting, air transport etc, as well as on different types of accidents.
We are still intending to hold this workshop in 2026 at the replanned Human Factors Safety and Clubs Round Table Event.
A survey was developed to assist in gathering data on risk perceptions and concerns. We are asking attendees to complete this as a preparatory exercise. That said, we would also value survey completion by members with safety risk concerns affecting gliding and glider towing. A survey link is here.
Sailplane Operations and Towing - Pre-Sector Safety Risk Profile Survey - https://consultation.casa.gov.au/stakeholder-engagement-group/c0b4a2b5
Your assistance is appreciated. Better data will inform clear safety priorities and better risk management.
WHY HUMAN FACTORS SAFETY IS A PRIORITY
Most of our occurrence reports, both operational and technical, indicate human factors as causes or contributing issues. So many times we hear of the consequences of airspace breaches, ground handling accidents, wheels-up landings, gable marker strikes, fuel exhaustion, runway conflicts, launch problems, near collisions, hard landings, canopy damage, flat tyres – the list goes on. Fatigue, distraction, poor checks, errors, overload, late decisions, gaps in training, oversight, lack of vigilance, multiple tasking and other issues are persistent challenges.
Working on improving our safety requires preventive strategies, reducing errors where we can, building safeguards and positive safety capabilities. We also need measures to reduce the severity of consequences, and strengthened responses when things go wrong.
Education and awareness improvements are critical, enabling positive safety conversations in clubs and competitions.
The 2026 Human Factors safety event is an opportunity for all members, regardless of experience or position, to share insights and improve awareness, and strengthen defences against inevitable human errors and lapses. Gaus, CASA and other aviation groups are striving for better sharing of lessons and practicable measures that work in sporting aviation and gliding. There is much to be learned beyond the online Human Factors resources and texts we use in training.
WHEN THE WORST HAPPENS
We are aware of buzzes circulating regarding the 30 July DDSC AS33Me fatal glider accident. Speculation is a natural response, but often wrongly placed. Careful investigation, analysis and disciplined response are difficult, incredibly complex, time-consuming and legally constrained. We have to respect the interests and wellbeing of affected family and friends, GAus and DDSC members, and respect Police and Coronial-in-confidence evidence requirements. We also have obligations to discern the safety lessons, develop recommendations and actions to reduce risks of recurrence and improve emergency responses.
For this accident, the investigation was incredibly confronting and complex, with many layers of recommendations and actions.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to a large team who have worked tirelessly in first response, accident site safety and access, cooperation with emergency services and aviation authorities. These individuals facilitated accident site inspection and on-site data collection, component recovery, flight data downloads, data modelling and visualisation, accident flight reconstruction and analysis,
On the data side, many people have assisted with pilot history collation, assessment of training and experience, aircraft maintenance and registration data collation, aircraft damage assessment, glider performance modelling, hypothesis testing, causal analysis, and developing recommendations and actions leading to an investigation report that forms part of the Queensland Police brief of evidence to the Coroner.
We owe so much to many others who have assisted in member support, counselling, pastoral care, club support and wellbeing checks.
The confidential GAus accident report provided to Police and Coroner will soon be shared with CASA and ATSB, solely for the purposes of improving aviation safety and managing actions to reduce risks of recurrence.
An edited report focussing on safety aspects and required actions will be compiled for sharing with GAus members. Improvements to our emergency response systems, and requirements for glider hazard data for emergency services and first responders, will also be published.
Vale Daryl Speight. Fly high.
WHEN THE BEST HAPPENS
What do members think about better positive reporting? Occasionally we see SOAR reports discussing safety issues where nothing went wrong, and when good preventive measures and safety decisions worked well.
I, for one, would love to see more stories about when the best happens, when someone makes positive interventions to improve safety, when someone speaks up and challenges orthodoxy to everyone’s benefit.
The Safety I approach focusses on reducing human error, limiting deviations and responding to problems. The Safety II approach focusses on building positive safety capabilities, culture and collective approaches.
Recent OSTIV announcements included a discussion on changing the safety report name from incident reports to observation reports. The idea is to encourage the submission of more Safety II type pro-active reports (‘I did something to disrupt/prevent an accident/incident instead of responding to one’). Our SOAR/SDR system needs improving. Do members think we need a SOAR sub-type report for simple positive safety reports? How would you like to better recognise this type of initiative and share the lessons? Give us your thoughts.
Happy landings.
See also: magazine.glidingaustralia.org/safety/safety-differently
