Decision Making and Risk

Decision Making and Risk

Introduction

“Making a decision is committing to a course of action”

The most important human factor of any flight is the decision making process of the crew. Sound decisions will lead to a safe and successful outcome to the task whereas bad decisions may lead to disaster. Decision making brings together many factors which have already been studied individually during this course. Thus this most important topic deserves special consideration.

The difference between “deciding” and “decision making” is, whereas “deciding” may be arbitrary or based on an emotion, “decision making” is the step-by-step scientific process which is followed in order to reach a balanced and factual decision sometimes known as the Judgement Concept. “Deciding” will not be discussed in this chapter.

A decision must be made each time there are several possible ways of achieving a given end. The choice will depend on:

•The aim to be achieved.

•The personal preference of the decision maker.

The aim of decision making is normally unambiguous however, the personal preference of options to achieve that aim will be influenced by a host of variables, such as the personality and biases of the decision maker, the stakes involved, perception, stress, emotion, training, past experience, motivation, commercial factors - to name but a few. However, it is possible to identify certain common factors that influence decision making regardless of the circumstances.

Fortunately the human being has a number of positive capabilities in the decision-making mechanism:

•The ability to make decisions very quickly if involved in a “skill” which is well learned and highly automated.

•The capability to be creative.

•The capacity to be innovative.

•The aptitude to cope with novel situations. The human will (currently) consistently outperform a machine in this area.

We must remember that the commander of the aircraft is ultimately responsible for any decision made in the cockpit.

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Faulty diagnosis, and thereby setting out to solve the wrong problem, may be avoided by ensuring that confirmation of the diagnosis is obtained from other members of the crew at this early stage. Should the pilot be by himself/herself, this initial diagnosis of the problem must be deliberately and calmly double-checked.

Definition of the objective must be crystal clear. Once the crew are certain that the diagnosis is correct, the objective normally is self-evident.

A decision is “good” if it can be implemented within the time available. Contrary to popular belief, it is unusual in flight that time dictates a very quick decision. Certainly, a rapid solution to an emergency on take-off or landing, or if the aircraft is flying close to the ground, is essential. However, on most other occasions, a crew can make time in the air. There are many options open to enable this to be done.

Some of these could be:

•An approach can be converted into an overshoot.

•The aircraft can be put into a hold while the problem is assessed and solved.

•Take-off may be delayed.

•Speed can always be reduced.

•Diversion is nearly always an option.

In spite of the possibility of an error of commission, the only effective solution when pilots expect to be short of time, is to prepare the decision in advance.

Remember: Thorough flight preparation plus briefings before each high risk phase of flight provide the best guarantee against making decisions when under the pressure of time.

Commercial considerations, such as fuel costs may encourage a pilot to self-impose a time restriction. Although it is easy enough from the classroom to view these as of small importance viz a viz safety, commercial considerations can put considerable pressure on aircrew and thereby colour their decisions.

Collect Information

Every source of information must be utilized. Other members of the crew must always be included as one of the most important of these sources. The Commander’s perception of the situation may well differ from that of the crew. If this is the case, and the crew is included as early as possible, in the decision-making process, the consequent discussion and analysis is almost certain to pre-empt a faulty diagnosis.

Assess Risk

Due to the dynamics of the situation (particularly the speed of the aircraft), an action emanating from a decision is frequently irreversible - thus risk is involved.

In assessing risk, both the amount and the probability of that risk must be considered. Unfortunately experiments have found that humans are not skilled at assessing the probability of different outcomes and their resulting risks. A person will tend to overestimate the frequency of a very rare, but beneficial/positive, occurrence. This bias explains why gambling and lotteries are pursued - because the low probability payoffs are perceived as occurring more frequently than they, in fact, do.

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On the other hand, peoples’ estimates of the frequency of unpleasant/negative events differ. Highly available or well-published events are overestimated (fatal aircraft accidents) whereas less salient events are greatly underestimated. (Airprox incidents, non-fatal accidents or the risk of contracting lung cancer through smoking).

Categories of Risk

The pilot can be exposed to 2 types of risk:

•External or Objective Risk

External risk is the risk of an accident in the current situation, if no changes are made to the flight path or the operation of systems.

•Internal or Subjective Risk

Internal risk is the risk which reflects the inability of the crew to implement a solution due to lack of know-how or insufficient time to apply their know-how. It should be noted that the internal risk increases linearly as the deadline for making and implementing the decision approaches.

A Risk Factor can be defined as anything that is likely to increase the likelihood of an accident occurring.

Develop Options

Assuming that the assessed situation is identified as a problem that requires some action, the pilot must then generate plausible alternative courses of action such as:

•Should the approach be continued?

•Is it better to go into a hold to give more time to gain further information?

•Should the aircraft return to base?

•Should the aircraft divert?

Evaluate Options

Each proposed course of action may have a different anticipated set of possible outcomes. All of these outcomes will have potential values associated with them (or costs, which may be termed as negative values). An evaluation of each outcome, together with its entailed risk assessment, is then made.

Decide

The Commander’s choice of options, or decision, should be that which produces the most value and the least cost. The option chosen should also lead to the most favourable expected outcome and which has the least risk. Sometimes it is not possible to have both and a compromise must, on occasions, be made.

A decision could be, of course, to delay an action until current information is confirmed or until additional data is obtained. Having made his/her decision, a good Commander will explain the reasons for the choice to the rest of the crew.

One further aspect of decision making and risk is important. Sometimes there is a choice of only two actions, one a risk and the other a sure thing. Man tends to make his decision dependant upon whether the problem is framed as a choice between two gains or two losses. People are biased to choose the risky loss rather than the certain loss, even when the expected loss resulting from the former is greater.