As reported in the first article in this series (ASW, 2/13), Flight Safety Foundation analyzed 16 years of aircraft accident data and found that the most common type of accident is the runway excursion. We noted that the almost complete (97 percent) failure to call go-arounds (GAs) as a preventive mitigation of the risk of continuing to fly unstable approaches (UAs) constitutes the no. 1 cause of runway excursions, and therefore of approach and landing accidents.1
In this second article, we report on a large study of pilots conducted by Presage Group Inc. as one part of the Foundation’s ongoing Go-Around Decision Making and Execution Project. The study was designed to aid in understanding the psychology of compliance and noncompliance with GA policies when pilots decide to continue to fly UAs rather than call for GAs. After briefly describing the research approach used in the Presage …
