Safety

Pilot
enVironment
Aircraft
External
Pressures
The four elements of the
PAVE risk assessment
checklist.
2. Process, or analyze, by evaluating the severity,
probability, and/or exposure of the risk posed
by the hazard(s) you identified in step one.
3. Perform by finding ways to eliminate or
mitigate the severity, probability, and/or
exposure of each of the identified hazards.
With consistent use, cycling continuously
through the three-P cycle can become a habit that
is as smooth and automatic as a well-honed crosscheck,
interpret, and control scan taught in instrument
flying.
Risk Management in the Airman
Certification Standards (ACS)
The FAA Risk Management Handbook (FAA-H-
8083-2) observes that:
Learning how to identify problems, analyze the
information, and make informed and timely
decisions is not as straightforward as the training
involved in learning specific maneuvers.
Learning how to judge
a situation and “how
A key part of the system-safety approach to think” in the endless
is risk management, a decision-making variety of situations
process designed to methodically identify encountered while flying
hazards, assess the degree of risk, and out in the “real world”
determine the best course of action.
is more difficult. There
is no one right answer
in Aeronautical Decision Making (ADM); rather
each pilot is expected to analyze each situation in
light of experience level, personal minimums, and
current physical and mental readiness level, and
make his or her own decision.
That’s why the new FAA Airman Certification
Standards (ACS), which began replacing the Practical
Test Standards (PTS) in June 2016, explicitly
incorporate risk management into the certification
standards for an airman certificate or rating.
While the PTS has long required the evaluation
of knowledge and risk management elements in
both the ground and flight portions of the practical
test, it offers little more than a statement of the
requirement and, in the case of “Special Emphasis”
items, a list of subjects the Designated Pilot Examiners
(DPEs) must evaluate. The ACS provides better
guidance to applicants, instructors, and evaluators
because it provides specific risk management and
ADM procedures and behaviors associated with
each Task, and it incorporates Special Emphasis
items in the risk management section of the appropriate
Area of Operation/Task. This presentation
helps instructors make stick and rudder skills more
meaningful by teaching them in the context of what
the applicant must know and consider while demonstrating
flight skills. On the practical test, it allows the
evaluator to see and assess an applicant’s judgment
and decision making in the context of actual flight
operations. The ACS thus discourages the use of
abstract and potentially subjective methods of testing
these important skills.
Consistent with the 3-P risk management
model, the ACS is also intended to communicate
and demonstrate that risk management is a continuous
process that includes identification, assessment,
and mitigation of task-specific hazards that create
risk. The risk management element identifies the
circumstantial issues that aviators must consider in
association with a particular task.
Because the level of risk that is acceptable to one
pilot may not be the same for another, some have
expressed concern that testing of risk management
10 FAA Safety Briefing January/February 2017