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3. Type of airplane being flown and information about other equipment involved in the incident: engine failure, instruments misread, controls confused, radio inoperative, etc.

It is expected that some of the pilots may not be able to give an example of such a situation. If, after giving the pilot sufficient opportunity to answer Question #2, the interviewer does not obtain an example, he should try following Alternative Questions: 

Alternative Question (Alt. #2) (Captains): "Well, then, perhaps you could tell me about the last time that you felt that the situation was so critical that you would not have wanted the average copilot to fly the airplane. Could you describe that situation and tell me what unsafe act an average copilot might have done in that situation?"

Alternative Question (Alt. #2) (Copilots): "Well, then, perhaps you could tell me about the last time that you felt that the situation was so critical that you preferred that the captain fly the airplane. Could you describe that situation and tell me what you might have done in that situation?"

Following is an example of a fairly satisfactory answer to Question #2:

Pilot: "We were landing at Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at night. The runway we had to land on was a very short one. Well, my copilot had been flying the plane so I thought I'd let him land it. As he turned on the approach, I could see he was too high, so I took over and cut off all the power and put my flaps down right away. Even at that we didn't touch until we were about a third of the way down the runway." 
(Comment: The pilot has described the situation briefly but has omitted some important information).
Interviewer: "Even with your taking over it was close, huh?"
(Comment: Note that the interviewer does not ask further questions but simply makes a response which shows the pilot that he is listening and is understanding what he is saying).
Pilot: "I'll say. He would have overshot for sure. Those DC-3's float a lot more than DC-4's. I guess he had been flying the bigger ships quite a bit. Then, too, the weather wasn't too hot--poor visibility, light rain. Course, with the rain, that made it worse because if he had to use a lot of brake at the end of the runway we would have been sunk."
(Comment: Here the pilot voluntarily has filled in the gaps in his original description. By giving the kind of response he gave, the interviewer obtained the additional information he needed: the type of plane, weather conditions, more about what the copilot might have done).

Question #3

"In addition to these specific incidents which you have described, we are anxious to get your opinions on causes of unsafe airline flying in general. Obviously, there are a great number of causes, but I would like to hear what you feel are some of the most important. What are the important causes of unsafe airline flying?"