A veteran instructor pilot conducts a routine training flight at a familiar regional airport. Weather is clear, workload is moderate. ATC issues a non-standard instruction — hold short of a runway they usually cross.
The pilot acknowledges with a crisp "Roger." But the brain has already filled in the blanks. The result is a classic looking-without-seeing event.
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Framework A
Dekker's New View
Instead of asking where people went wrong, we ask why their actions made sense at the time. Expectation bias is a functional adaptation — in the cockpit it becomes a liability. |
Framework B
Conklin's HOP
Human and Organisational Performance holds that error is inevitable. Plan Continuation Bias is reinforced by fuel costs, slot times, and mission investment. |
The industry's historical response has been hardware: ADS-B, GPWS, TCAS. The next frontier demands attention to mindware — the cognitive infrastructure that sits between data and decision.
Enhanced Fatigue Risk Management (FRMS) — High workload and fatigue narrow the attentional spotlight, making Inattentional Blindness almost mathematically certain. FRMS frameworks quantify that risk.
Multi-Sensory Alerting — Moving beyond auditory "whoop-whoop" alerts (vulnerable to auditory exclusion) toward haptic and visual cues designed to penetrate cognitive tunnel vision.
Training Evolution & the 1,500-Hour Rule — More rigorous experience requirements aim to build deeper recognition-primed decision-making, though they must be balanced against the risk of rote ritualization replacing genuine vigilance.
Countering cognitive bias requires more than intention — it requires intentional disruptors built into procedure and habit.
The Break-Set Technique
During high-load phases, physically change your posture or touch a specific instrument when receiving a non-standard instruction. This "physicalizes" the mental shift and interrupts the automation of routine.
Verbalize the No-Go Condition Early
State the abort criteria before you need them: "If we are not stable by 1,000 feet, we are going around." Naming the limit early reduces the grip of Plan Continuation Bias when it matters most.Cross-Check for Disconfirmation
When you see a "go" sign, deliberately hunt for one "no-go" sign. Challenge your own narrative before the approach briefing closes. Confirmation bias cannot survive a disciplined search for counter-evidence.Replace "Roger" with Full Readbacks
On any non-standard clearance or constraint, move beyond a reflexive acknowledgement. A full readback of the critical restriction ensures your "Roger" is a confirmation of understanding, not a conditioned courtesy response.
- Does your organisational culture reward completion in ways that inadvertently fuel Plan Continuation Bias — and how would you know?
- When analysing near-misses, do you stop at "failure to follow SOP" — or probe for the expectation that made it invisible?
- Does your training design address cognitive bias explicitly, or assume procedure knowledge alone is sufficient?