In an article submitted for consideration to AOPA Pilot magazine I highlighted several dangerous attitudes inherent in my uncle, actually in all pilots, in my experience, by offering my perspective on an aviation incident during which he was pilot in command. At a family reunion on his mid-western farm, during a lull in the giving of rides, young children were allowed to play unsupervised in and around his parked Cessna Skyhawk. The keys were in his pocket, my uncle thought, so what was the harm?

During their play, the children apparently switched on the autopilot, admittedly a rare option, especially in an old Skyhawk. Naturally, immediately after takeoff, the airplane dutifully banked toward the compass heading the children had inadvertently selected. Not privy to this information, my uncle fought for control as his right wing captured an armload of tall cornstalks growing in the field next to his grass strip. Then, he continued fighting the autopilot and the airplane, circling the field to land her again.

Apart from the poor judgment allowing children to play where they should not have been, directly as a result of his poor attitude, specifically, his steadfast refusal to preflight his airplane, then routinely to ignore the checklist wherein he would have discovered the errant switch, during the event, he and his passengers could easily have been killed. The event was avoidable.

Without getting too far afield here, another critical point or points my uncle cavalierly overlooked were his trying to take off from an undulating grass airstrip, tall trees at one end, on a steamy July day in Ohio, in a Skyhawk with its anemic 160 horses, with four heavy adults aboard. For the non-pilot among my readers, consider that each one of these conditions individually, even more so collectively, dramatically impact an airplane’s available horsepower and thrust, its ground roll distance, acceleration, rate of climb, and its aerodynamic stall speed.

Yet, what happened in the airplane that day was not simply one incident of forgetfulness on his part, an honest mistake, or an item of consequence innocently overlooked. Such a cavalier attitude was a pattern with him; as I remember it, one that governed his entire flying career. As is usual in aviation, an event, an incident, or an accident rarely has just one cause. More often, it is a process, an evolution, a series of smaller, sometimes even innocuous events, by comparison, compounding, each making the previous one or ones worse, only then ultimately defining the event or catastrophe.

I gave a flight review to a man whom we shall henceforth call Bill. Years later, Bill telephoned me at home to confess that he had just finished reading an earlier article that had recently been published in AOPA Pilot magazine. As we chatted, his enthusiasm for my writing skill allowed me to slip into the conversation that I had written and recently published a book. He was excited. Since Bill did not have internet service, I offered to order the book for him.

A week or so later, Bill arrived at my house to pick up his copy of The End of Innocence, which I proudly autographed for him. As we sat in my living room chatting about airplanes, I learned that Bill is an A & P mechanic, as well, so he can repair and maintain aircraft.

I learned also that Bill is the pilot I’d heard about back when I was teaching who took off one day from Warrenton Airport, VA, in his own airplane only to suffer the indignity of having his propeller separate from the aircraft in flight. The prop spun away as though with a mind of its own, ultimately driving itself deep into the heart of some farmer’s pasture one thousand feet below. Without the prop, immediately, the engine quit, but Bill and his airplane glided to a safe landing at the airport just below them.

Now, Bill never admitted who was responsible for neglecting to torque and safety-wire the bolts securing the propeller to the engine crankshaft. All he carefully said is that this is a task that had not been accomplished. After thinking on this event for a while, it occurred to me that it was Bill himself who was the mechanic, working on his own airplane, ultimately responsible for what could have turned out to be an oversight even more costly and inconvenient than only a new propeller.

What if Bill could not have landed safely? What if the prop hit the farmer’s cow or a valuable thoroughbred horse? The falling prop could easily have impaled a car, truck, or an expensive tractor or farm implement, sliced through the roof of a house, pierced a natural gas transport line, there are many in the area, or hit someone’s child. An aircraft propeller is fairly heavy in its own right. A wildly-spinning propeller falling from one thousand feet altitude, the potential for catastrophe is significant.

Bill seemed fairly calm, even cavalier in his relating of this event. Possibly, it was the typical pilot bravado, as well as his transparent effort to cover up his own carelessness that governed his demeanor that day sitting chatting with me in my living room.

At one point, I related to him the details of the near-tragic event on my uncle’s Midwestern farm. During the story, especially now as a professional flight instructor myself, I took the liberty of admonishing my uncle for his poor attitude, his refusal to use the written checklist, behavior that could have gotten several people killed.

At that point, despite his propeller experience, an event, it turns out, entirely of his own making, looking me squarely in the eye, Bill said to me in that same cavalier tone, “Why should your uncle do a preflight; it’s his airplane”?

Well, the airplane Bill was working on that lost its propeller that day was an airplane that Bill himself owned. It was his airplane. Perhaps Bill also should have consulted a checklist, just as my uncle should have done. Maybe he should have had someone qualified looking over his shoulder or at least checking his work; maybe checked, then rechecked his own work. Here Bill is weakly defending another pilot for an oversight he himself not only committed, but from the sound of things, may be in danger of committing again.

It’s my airplane, Bill is saying defiantly, why should I adhere to protocol? Yet, the attitude and behavior of both men could have had disastrous consequences. There is a written checklist in the cockpit for a reason, just as there is a shop manual for the mechanic, complete with step-by-step instructions.

The real tragedy here, as is true throughout much of human behavior, is that neither my uncle nor Bill had any comprehension that what they were doing was wrong or risky or dangerous, against protocol, not good horse sense, or simply a bad idea. They could not see the potential consequences of their behavior. Furthermore, they could not distance themselves from the experience thoroughly enough and for long enough to become objective, to comprehend, one, the possible outcomes, and two, and more tragically, their respective roles in these outcomes.

The conscientious human being is organically changed through experiences such as these. After a potentially career-ending event, in more ways than one in both of these cases, the personally-accountable man becomes more aware of those flaws within himself that lead to the event. He then makes the changes to his attitude necessary at least to try to forestall a recurrence of that event. Neither of these men, however, could see that the problem lay within themselves.

Later that day on his farm, my uncle strolled out to his Skyhawk to try to discover what had gone wrong. As he sat alone, quietly in the left seat, intensely studying the instrument panel, still without benefit of the written checklist in his hand, he happened to notice the errant switch.

The event that day, the flight, the switch, the fear; the tall, green cornstalks accumulating on his right wing, the epic struggles: man versus machine, man versus his own nature, the unexpected, all brought about, in his case, by his own negligence, so unnerved my uncle that he sold his Skyhawk not long after.

At my father’s funeral, my uncle broached the subject one last time. Confessing privately, somewhat sheepishly, what was now years later, to me, his nephew, who himself had since become a flight instructor, it seemed finally to occur to him that there existed the possibility of this switch being at fault in that event.

I pointed out gently to this now-quite-elderly man, leaning in close, heavy upon his cane, that the fault in this experience lay not with the autopilot, the airplane, or even with the switch, but with him as the pilot for not using the written checklist. What could he do at that point in his fading twilight years but smile at me embarrassed?

Still, my uncle missed the point of the lesson. Where he failed to make the connection himself was between the switch being in the “on” position and what he had done to effect that condition. More to the point was his inability to realize that his salvation lay within himself.

His salvation lay not within no longer giving rides to excited passengers that summer day, himself becoming discouraged, depressed, or frustrated, no longer thinking himself an aviator, perhaps that he was now too old, or even ultimately selling his airplane. All he had to do was to adjust his attitude. All he had to do to effect change was to consult the checklist.

The argument could be made here that his experience that day on his farm highlighted a problem more organic than simply not consulting a checklist. Yes, I agree with that argument. That’s the point. His attitude overall is what needed fixing.

Still, instead of recognizing his attitude as problematic, then taking the steps necessary to effect that change by electing to become accountable to himself, he took the easy path and simply gave up. The path he chose confirms the uncomfortable conclusion that he still lacks the insight into his own motivations.

The other man, Bill, also obviously missed the point of his lesson. Years later, his cavalier remark about my uncle reflects his own inability to make that same connection between the condition, in his case, of his airplane’s propeller, and what he had done to effect that condition. Moreover, he was unable to achieve the correlation level of learning, that neglecting to properly install the propeller reflects his lack of accountability to himself. Thus, if he could not comprehend how that concept applies to him, it’s no wonder he, or even the rest of mankind, for that matter, could not see how that same concept applies to anyone else.