A pilot’s guide to personal emergencies
This was not what I expected, while admiring the stars and spotting satellites, flying 30,000 feet above the icy mountains of Greenland. Just when I was considering getting up to stretch my stiff legs, I got a sudden jolt. An alarm bell pierced through the cockpit.
Heart rate jumps instantly. Focus narrows to a single point. What’s wrong!?
Sixteen years of experience, hundreds of training hours in simulators, and still, my system was totally out of balance. By the looks of it, my colleague was having the same experience. We were about to kick into overdrive with checklists, troubleshooting, and taking manual control of the airplane. But we didn’t. We paused.
I noticed that my exhale became just that bit longer. The familiar sound of the engines brought me back in the here and now.
“You okay?”, I asked. “Yeah, I’m good.” my colleague replied. “What do you think is the problem?”, he asked me in turn.
Out of the many principles that could be expanded on, there is one that should be every pilot’s bedrock. Knowing how to take stock of a situation efficiently. No matter your skills, your knowledge, or your experience with failures, they all become utterly useless when your awareness is locked onto one thing only. When you are startled, your nervous system runs the show.
The old fight, flight, or freeze wiring sets your internal autopilot on a treacherous course. These responses will hardly ever guide you in your everyday life, let alone when taking final responsibility for an airplane with a pending problem.
To take stock of the situation, means starting to get your nervous system back into the range where it has options again. The hardest part is to recognize you have to do that in the first place. Then the actual doing is easy:
Pause, pay attention to your breath, become aware of your surroundings, and communicate what’s going on.
This will drop you right back into the moment. From this point on you are ready to bring in your skills and procedures. Because you are back in control of yourself. And only now it is time to address the situation.
This may seem anti-climactic, but that issue, accompanied by the alarm bell, turned out to be a quick and easy reset. We were back to ops normal in no time. We proceeded with the checklist, switched on and off the relevant system, and we were already ordering another round of coffee while admiring the night’s sky.
But we couldn’t have known that outcome ahead of time. And neither could our bodies. Nervous systems kicking into action is something we see in our daily lives all the time. Luckily it’s hardly ever a real alarm bell. But your personal “system” will interpret it as such.
A part of you hears your boss critiquing your work and believes your value is objectively eroding at a frightening rate. This fires off a fear based protection mechanism that numbs you from any further feedback. You block it. You don’t sense it. You are unresponsive. In other words, you are unable to take stock.
Or maybe you feel forced to fight back? If not your boss, how about a political discussion over dinner at the in-laws? The point is that your awareness was taken hostage by processes that are used to run on autopilot. And no matter your intentions, no matter your preparation, taking stock of your situation first is key. Everything builds on that. And better results will follow.
You want this principle to help you too? Remember the option to disconnect your internal autopilot first. It will create some much needed space. Space you can use to navigate towards better outcomes in your life.
So the next time you hear your own alarm bells go off, try this personal emergency checklist:
⊡ Pause
⊡ Breathe
⊡ Observe
⊡ Communicate
Will this guarantee a smooth landing? I don’t know. But at least you’ll have safely landed in the here and now.
