Aeronautical Decision Making for Air Ambulance Helicopter Pilots: Situational Awareness Exercises

The following materials are based upon actual helicopter air ambulance accidents. They cover four broad accident types most recently associated with aeromedical accidents: night flying, weather, obstacle strikes, and mechanical failures. Three types of information are included for each accident type. These are: introductory/background material to provide you with the historical importance and frequency of each accident type; training knowledge that should be learned in order to avoid mistakes of the past; and decision making exercises. These decision making exercises are based on accidents reports with persons and places de-identified. They are meant to enhance the basic manual: 'Aeronautical Decision Making for Helicopter Pilots' by providing an insight to the types of decision errors which contributed to accidents in the past. The basic manual contains introductory and tutorial material necessary for improving basic decision making skills. Some material contained in that manual and not included in this one are: rotorcraft risk assessment; the self-awareness inventory; identifying and reducing stress; and headwork. Reading and understanding the concepts of decision making will improve the pilot's ability to analyze the scenarios contained herein. Keywords: Human factors, Human performance, Aviation safety, Aviation training, Pilot error, Judgement, Decision making, Helicopter pilot, Helicopters, Rotorcraft.