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Pilots have a love hate relationship with checklists. They are vital to doing the job. We fly these complex aircraft every day. And it truly is a life or death situation. Something as simple as the wrong fuel or a forgotten bolt can bring down an aircraft full of people. It's important to instill in our students the vital importance of checklists.

It’s often the simple stuff that gets people killed. Was the fuel the right color, is the door latched, is there enough air in the tires. They seem like simple things, yet all three of these examples have killed pilots and their passengers.

Read NTSB reports of accidents or incidents caused due partially or in full to pilot omission of fuel checks. Entries such as FUEL QUANTITY have literally hundreds upon hundreds of examples in the NTSB database.

Some of the reports linked to resulted in fatalities. Many resulted in serious injury, and most resulted in broken aircraft leading to serious expense and possible embarrassment for those involved.

Over and over you will see the following;
"The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation, which resulted in fuel exhaustion, and subsequent loss of engine power during cruise flight."
"The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision which resulted in fuel exhaustion. A contributing factor in the accident was the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation to ensure an adequate fuel supply was available for the intended flight."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight planning which led to fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of engine power."
"A loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion during approach, inadequate preflight planning/preparation by the certified flight instructor (CFI)."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which failed to determine the fuel supply in each fuel tank, and his mismanagement of the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel starvation."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and his failure to verify fuel consumption during flight that resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent collision with obstacles and the ground."
"The pilot's departure with insufficient fuel for the planned flight, and his improper in-flight fuel management, which resulted in a total loss of power in both engines due to fuel starvation."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and failure to verify the amount of fuel onboard the airplane prior to departure, which resulted in loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation and failure to verify the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and subsequent loss of engine power."
"The pilots improper preflight planning and preparation which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion."
"The pilot's failure to refuel, resulting in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent loss of engine power."
"The pilot's inadequate preflight and mismanagement of the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel exhaustion."
I can go on all day with these.

I had an instructor who made a habit of leaving items for me to find to ensure I was following my checklists. He would do things like leave a screw driver on the top of the engine where I could see it. Or tie a ribbon on the alternator belt. If I said we were ready to go when he came out and I didn't have the item in hand we would do a full repeat of the check list. It got expensive but in reality it was a cheap lesson compared to what could happen.

There are two practices to checklists.
The Do-list. This method can be better termed “call-do-response.” The checklist itself is used to lead and direct the pilot in configuring the aircraft, using a step-by-step “cookbook” approach. The setup redundancy is eliminated here, and therefore, a skipped item can easily pass unnoticed once the sequence is interrupted.

Challenge-response. In this method, which can be more accurately termed “challenge verification-response,” the checklist is a backup procedure. First, the pilots configure the plane according to memory. Only then, the pilots use the checklist to verify that all the items listed on the checklist have been correctly accomplished. This is the most common checklist method used today by commercial operators.

I personally don't like the challenge and response method because it's too easy to misremember things. "Did I check the pitch change jam links on my helicopter this time or am I remembering another time?" This is an easy way to get into trouble. This is where the ego comes in to play. Far too many pilots think their memory is better than they think it is. And that gets them into trouble. I see it all the time in helicopter aviation. I do it too. When coming in for a landing it's difficult to break out the checklist so a lot is done by memory. Landing a passenger on a mountain top with heavy wind? I am going to be focused on flying the aircraft not reaching for the checklist. But on more than one occasion I have missed a step or two. I found a way around it by having a flip book of checklists on my kneeboard.

Checklists verify that the necessary minimum gets done. With increasing complexity comes the temptation to skip over the stupid simple stuff and instead focus on the “sexy” parts of one’s work and life. Because the stupid simple stuff is so stupid and simple, we often fool ourselves that it’s not important in the grand scheme of things. But as we've seen, it’s often our most basic tasks that can spell the difference between success and disaster.

Checklists act as a check against our ego, and remind us to make sure the stupid, simple, but absolutely necessary stuff gets done.
Checklists free up mental RAM. People often bristle at using a checklist because it feels constraining. They want to be flexible and creative, and the checklist seems to take away their autonomy.

Checklists provide more freedom to exercise your professional judgment. You don't need to think about remembering to do the stupid simple stuff because there’s a checklist for that. Offloading the need to remember basic tasks frees up the brain to concentrate on the important stuff. Things like is the weather safe enough to take off.
Checklists don’t replace judgment, they enhance it.

Checklists save time. A common complaint about checklists is they take too much time to go through. But running through a checklist need not take very long, and research shows that doing so will actually save you time in the long run. Because checklists can prevent errors caused by skipping basic steps, you spend less time fixing mistakes and more time doing constructive work.

So leave the ego in the car. When you get around an aircraft, use a checklist.