Can Reading Accident Reports Produce Better Pilots?
Students need the right frame of mind to learn what the reports are truly telling them.

A quick review of recent NTSB accident reports proves there’s a serious need for better flight training in the helicopter industry. Dan Doepker, a member of the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) and chief instructor at Hillsboro Aviation, says ground school is just as important to a safe flying career as learning how to manipulate the cyclic and collective. He believes the dozens of operational safety insights available to pilots of all experience levels in the NTSB’s accident and incident reports make them an invaluable training resource. “As safety educators, we must teach students to use all the resources available, learn from others’ mistakes and improve their education to become better pilots. We must…get them excited about learning how to save lives.”


However, right now, “We are failing to ensure that the pilots we train are learning the value of those accident trends and causes,” Doepker said, partially because students aren’t always in the right frame of mind to understand those lessons. Doepker doesn’t believe simply handing students an accident report and hoping they figure it all out is an effective method to teach safety. Rather, the critical element in creating safer helicopter pilots is an instructor taking the time to explain how an accident chains builds, as well as pointing out the times when the crews could still have turned things around.


Doepker reminds students of something we all think we know too when reading about fatal accidents: “None of those people planned to have an accident that day. But they did allow mistakes and situational factors to put them where they never should have been."


He believes instructors must help students develop their own risk-mitigation plans for each accident they read about. We must help them see what a pilot might have done differently, or what can be done today before every flight to ensure a safe operation. That strategy should not change when there are time constraints or other pressures.” Doepker said an effective learning tool is getting students to think about the people affected by a pilot’s decisions: “Their own family members, passengers and passengers’ families, everyone who trusts the pilot to fly safely.”