Recognizing the Hazard

Recognizing the Hazard
Recognizing hazards is critical to beginning the risk
management process. Sometimes, one should look past
the immediate condition and project the progression of the
condition. This ability to project the condition into the future
comes from experience, training, and observation.
1. A nick in the propeller blade is a hazard because it
can lead to a fatigue crack, resulting in the loss of the
propeller outboard of that point. With enough loss, the
vibration could be great enough to break the engine
mounts and allow the engine to separate from the
aircraft.
2. Improper refueling of an aircraft is a hazard because
improperly bonding and/or grounding the aircraft
creates static electricity that can spark a fire in the
refueling vapors. Improper refueling could also mean
fueling a gasoline fuel system with turbine fuel. Both
of these examples show how a simple process can
become expensive at best and deadly at worst.
3. Pilot fatigue is a hazard because the pilot may not
realize he or she is too tired to fly until serious errors
are made. Humans are very poor monitors of their own
mental condition and level of fatigue. Fatigue can be as
debilitating as drug usage, according to some studies.
4. Use of unapproved hardware on aircraft poses
problems because aviation hardware is tested prior
to its use on an aircraft for such general properties as
hardness, brittleness, malleability, ductility, elasticity,
toughness, density, fusibility, conductivity, and
contraction and expansion.