Today's accidents can happen to anybody at any time. Why?

• Accidents result from errors
• Rookies make rookie erros
• Experts make expert errors
• Nobody can predict, when an error will happen

The Problem

Finding the error means (too often) finding a culprit. Errors without serious results are therefore often neglected and their potential for improvement is wasted.

The Reason Model (Swiss Cheese Model)

Assuming each layer of flight safety—technology, weather (forecast), club mates, and last but noch least the pilot—as safety nets, each error is a hole in the respective safety net.

If holes in all safety nets align, an accident happens. But we can see the holes only, as soon as an accident happens, i.e. when it's too late.

The Solution

Proactive treatment of errors and considering them as chance for improvement points out the holes in the safety nets, before an accident happens. Proactive flight safety means learning from errors instead of learning from accidents.

To learn from errors, they must be addressed openly. But how does this fit to a club and safety culture, which punishes errors made?

From PuMist to LefEr

Assuming to eliminate any error using enough force, errors need to be punished. We call this system PuMist—Punish Mistakes.

Assuming errors to be human, we need to establish a culture, that allows talking about errors and allowing to Learn from Errors—LefEr. This will point out the holes in the cheese slices of our flight safety and enables us to mitigate them effectively.

Communication as Key to Flight Safety

Communication about errors, own or others', is always critical, as communication is multi-dimensional in any case.

A very popular model is the communication model of Schulz von Thun, which differentiates four layers:

• Facts
• Appeal
• Relationship
• Self-revelation

Depending on the «layer», the receiver ist listening on, the same message may be interpreted differently. In order not to have relevant information being understood as attack, communication training is necessary. This training is provided by the FLYTOP courses.