This is an idiom you may have heard of. It is referring to the need to take calculated risks in order to make future gains. But I actually want to talk about speculation in the aviation context. More especially, the aviation accident context. Because for us, there is NO gain from speculation. We do not accumulate anything at all!

Why should we talk about this?

A lot of folk have put posts out there speculating on what happened in the recent, and very tragic, Air India crash, and a lot of other folk have commented with varying degrees of ire over the level of speculation.

Those for speculating say “you can learn from it!” And those against say “it’s wrong”. All of which probably makes it quite hard for new pilots, joining the industry, to know what to do.

So here is my take on it. Just my opinion, nothing more. But I think it is a conversation worth having, so I hope this can generate more of that, and I hope it will get folk questioning what their level of “ok” is with regards this.

My take

There is a lot of value in discussing “what if?” Scenarios, where you think about how YOU might deal with a certain situation. There is also a lot of benefit in discussing technical aspects of an aircraft, in context of an accident, because it gives us more understanding of our own aircraft, its limitations and how to handle things.

But… this isn’t speculation.!

This is professionals, discussing on closed forums, amongst colleagues, in order to learn.

So when is it speculation? (And why is that a bad thing?)

Speculation is where you start to see “statements of fact” – people saying “this happened”. Experts suggesting pilots should have done this, or considered that…

I think there are three major problems with this:

First up, in aviation we work off facts. In order to have a productive discussion where we can learn something (to bring it into our own operation) we need to have facts. Otherwise, there really is no useful point.

We can glean some technical learning from discussing events, but we cannot gain really any human factors understanding because, frankly, we have zero idea what happened. And changes are there were human factors involved so me thinking “what would I do if?” Isn’t all that beneficial because I have zero idea of what a large proportion of the context looks like.

Now, those who like to post posts saying “I am an expert, this is what I think” actually rarely tend to be. They claim that having these discussions benefits people. It might do – but only generally when those people know the aircraft, and there is not reason to have that out in public.

Yes, we do have discussions, which we learn from. But we do that behind “closed doors” and don’t need Joe Bloggs on LinkedIn explaining to us about a RAT works, how flaps work, or what engine flame out means on the aircraft WE fly…

The second issue

The second issue is these self-proclaimed “experts” are posting in open forums. In places were anyone can read it, and they tend to be doing it under a title of “I Know It All, Listen To Me!”

And the public do listen. The public want answers, want to know who to blame, want to know how afraid they need to be.

By speculating, these “experts” are feeding this rumour mill. Even ones that give vaguely accurate information are still adding to the problem because people outside the industry read a post by So-And-So and take it as fact. They then share that as fact. That fact gets whittled down, Chinese whispers occur, the message is distorted and lost…

And the general public say “Pilot error! Why didn’t they do XYZ. Aviation isn’t safe.”

The third problem?

It is really disrespectful to the people involved in the accident (those who died, the families impacted, and of course, our colleagues).

Speculation near on always leads to judgement. Judgements leads to the issue I raised above: when an “aviation expert” writes or says something, it tends to be taken as fact.

We don’t know what happened, let alone why. What we should care about is the fact people died and their families are waiting for answers.

We should also care that our industry is BUILT on learning, but that learning has to come from facts, gained through thorough investigation. To ignore that and create your own “investigation” is disrespectful to those involved, and to the industry and the processes within it.

What can we do?

Well, simple – stop speculating on open forums!

Before you put something out there, ask yourself WHO you are writing it for. I guarantee you, it is not for other pilots. It is not for the benefit of the industry, for learning and development. It is for YOURSELF! To have people go “oh my, don’t they know a lot!”

I fly a Boeing 787 and I have not paid attention to any of the “expert” posts out there. Sure, I’ve chatted with colleagues (in private), I’ve looked in the manuals and reminder myself of certain technical facts, and I have considered privately what could lead to certain outcomes. But I sure haven’t learned and benefited from a single speculating post on LI.

If you are reading a post from an “expert”, ask whether they actually are. Are they involved in the investigation? Do they even fly the aircraft? How could they know anymore information than you do about the event?

Hint: they probably don’t!

For new pilots to the industry

There is NOTHING wrong with discussing things amongst peers and colleagues. We DO learn from these discussions, but these should be had out of sight of the general public, and they should never speculate on “what was done wrong”.

In aviation we learn a great deal from understanding how accidents occurred, but in order to do that, we need facts. The only way to gain those facts is through waiting for an official report and then taking the time to read it and consider it and what you can learn from it.