Simple Reminder To Avoid Decision Making Under Panic By Stephen R. Murray

This is a summary of the article “Deliberate Decision Making by Aircraft Pilots: A Simple Reminder to Avoid Decision Making Under Panic” by Stephen R. Murray in The International Journal of Aviation Psychology. The article discusses a study that was conducted to expose general aviation pilots to additional decision making training. Aeronautical decision making is one of the main causes of accidents. There are several programs that are designed to help reduce poor decision making among pilots. The programs are generally used by foreign airlines and military that have lower hour pilots with less experience. They study conducted an intervention and used a questionnaire to check on the acceptance of the intervention. The results showed there was

While trying to make a decision on a task, the brain can neglect or ignore other available information. The brain can also distort or change incoming information to reduce anxiety. Pilots have additional factors that effect decision making. Pilot work in a high complex environment, pilots rely heavily on their senses for information, pilots are goal oriented, and pilots can have unrealistic optimism. Pilots also rely heavily on habits to reduce workload which can causes issues when they switch to a new type. Stress can have two different effects. It can increase performance or it can be interfering and decrease performance. Fatigue is another factor that can decrease pilot decision making performance. Fixation on a single task such as “get-home-itis” can also cause other important cues to be

To develop a means to transmit the developed knowledge, discussed previously, to existing pilots, especially general aviation pilots who were not exposed to this knowledge during their pilot training and have not had the exposure subsequently. 2. To provide them with a permanent reminder for use in the cockpit, flight planner, study, or area where their flight planning usually takes place.” (Murray 1997) In the study the standard DECIDE model for decision making was changed to DESIDE. The C was changed to an S for two reasons. The first is the incorrect spelling would cause the mnemonic to be more memorable and second the S stands for Set Safe Objectives. It reminds users to make a safe choice and not just a choice that might be