Early in the morning in early January of this year, my mom and all my siblings received a text from one of my older sisters telling us her oldest son had crash landed a small airplane he was piloting. Realizing some of us are worriers (ok, one of us) she started the text with “J.R. is home and resting” before giving us the details of the previous night’s events.

As the story unfolded that day, most of the words that came up in that group text stream were about gratitude and healing and divine help and tender mercies.  And rightly so. 

One interaction stuck with me.  

My sister told us “He was the only one in the plane. It was mechanical failure, not pilot error. He didn’t have enough altitude or speed to make it to an airport, so he set it down away from a busy freeway and crowded neighborhoods.”

To which my cute mom said, “So grateful J.R. is skilled enough to be able to avoid a worse calamity.” 

As I have mentioned in this space before, I have 30 nieces and nephews on my side of the family and they are some of the very best people I know.  I. Love. Them. 

I have been thinking a lot about J.R. this week because I have been researching risk. 

Back in 1986, Lola Lopez, in an article that has been referenced hundreds of times, said “risk averse and risk seeking individuals differ in whether they pay most attention to the worst outcomes in a distribution or the best outcomes. Risk averse people appear to be motivated by a desire for security, whereas risk seeking people appear to be motivated by a desire for potential. The former motive values safety, and the latter, opportunity.”

John Zimmerman, a pilot himself, writes about pilots, to pilots.  In one of his 2020 articles, he talks about risk management.  “Let me be clear what I mean by risk management,” he says. “I’m talking about … a way of thinking, one that most pilots develop during flight training …. While you may not realize it, you probably think about potential problems, the probability of those problems occurring, what options you have for avoiding them, and if the end goal is worth it.”

I spoke with J.R. last night about his crash landing.  He now has several months and hundreds of hours of flying to distance him between now and that night.  I thought I would be talking to him about what I was learning about risks – and why he takes them.  I was wrong. 

We would be talking about risk management.

“What that flight drove home to me is the importance of checklists.  Everything in piloting is checklist based.  There is a checklist for absolutely every part of flying.  Before you get to the airport, before you leave the airport, before you get in the plane, before you start the engine, and on and on and on.  Flight after flight.”

“It would be easy to justify ‘oh, I don’t need to check that today, I just flew this plane yesterday’ and to back off from being diligent”, he said. 

That particular flight should have been no big deal. 

But J.R. had been feeling unsettled.  Because of that, he prepared more thoroughly. He checked and rechecked every calculation, every elevation, every weight and balance.  He knew the unfamiliar population and topography he was flying over because he had painstakingly studied it. His path of flight was excruciatingly precise. 

So, when his plane lost oil pressure and the engine stalled, he was able to put his plane down near the path of a canal and come away from it with “8 staples in my scalp and a cool story.”

Safety. Opportunity. Diligence. Potential problems. End goal. 

Mr. Zimmerman says, “A threat is a threat. Experience is certainly valuable for a pilot, but only if you learn the right lessons…. A combination of perspective and discipline [is needed]. 

The perspective part means staying focused on the ultimate goal. As pilots, our goal isn’t just to fill in the blanks of a weight and balance form or perform a preflight walk around; it’s to complete a flight safely. [Just] going through the motions should be a red flag. 

The discipline part means following the rules, even if you’ve done it 1,000 times already. Airline captains most definitely know how to start the engine or configure the airplane for takeoff, but they follow their checklists anyway. [The] habits and systems …  only work if they are in place for every flight.”

My mom’s words came back to me. “…skilled enough to avoid a worse calamity.”

In aviation, as Mr. Zimmerman says, complacency kills. Perspective and discipline is needed. 

In everyday life, complacency can kill resolve and momentum and even relationships.  In order to get to the safety AND the opportunity, perspective and discipline is needed. 

I can’t wait to hear about the areas where you are managing your risks and refusing to be complacent.  And if you’re struggling with the perspective or discipline part, I’d love to help.  We can even make a checklist.