Are you biased as a pilot?

Posted by TxAggieMike@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 29 comments

Okay, I'll admit to the click bait style title.... But I'd like the group's input to a lesson I'm building which includes discussing **Confirmation Bias** and **Expectation Bias** It's easy enough to find the definitions of this bias, and a few aviation examples. But using AI to do this is....lazy. I prefer real world stuff if I can have it. What I'm hoping to get is some stories I could use to elaborate on the topic and make it a bit more memorable. If you have a story to share on when confirmation bias or expectation bias affected you, please share: - Setup: what was the situation you were in or about to be in? - What form of bias did you get into? - How did it affect your decisions? - What got you to recognize it was happening? - How did you fix the issue? - What was the outcome of your scenario. Pilots at any level are welcome to share in the discussion.

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29 Comments

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walleyednj@reddit

Walked into a nightclub filled with hot women. Pulled my certificate card out my wallet, announced I was a pilot, and immediately, as expected, all the hot women thronged around me, all begging for me to take them to bed. Expectation was confirmed.

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anaqvi786@reddit

But the real question is if you wore the plastic kiddie delta wings or the real ones

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walleyednj@reddit

Vintage Pan-Am kiddie wings. I’m nothing if not classy.

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Dinosaur_Wrangler@reddit

Not all of can be aviators, chief. I’m sorry you had to endure Miami Sound Machine, though.

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DE_FUELL@reddit

Strange YESTERDAY I was just building my first lesson plan in CFI training, on runway incursion avoidance. I was looking for examples of confirmation or expectation bias for "C.R2" in the ACS. How about that old "Line up and Wait" story. Pilot is told to line up and wait, gets on the runway and advanced throttles. Suddenly a 737 zooms past left to right as it's taking off from a crossing runway. Pilot expected to be cleared for takeoff. FAA even changed the verbiage from "position and hold" to help combat this some years ago.

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TxAggieMike@reddit (OP)

Keep digging on Google for different FAA publications that discuss bias. I found a few more good things to add to my lesson on the subject.

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OnToNextStage@reddit

The classic one is expecting to hear a clearance because you ALWAYS get the same clearance Example at my home airport, KRNO 99.9% of the time when you get a taxi route it will be “Runway 17L taxi via C” But whenever they say “Runway 17L taxi via L, C” or even something as benign as “Runway 17L hold short at taxiway D” people will not write it down or even do so and then forget it and then cause an incursion

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AutomagicJackelope@reddit

This - especially at really busy Class B airports - think JFK, LGA, ORD - routes are frequently the same and you get \*really\* used to hearing the same things. Until one day there is construction and they throw you a curve ball. Big threat right there. Another one is flying the same STARs over and over, but ATC gives you a curveball (Jax Center and Denver Center, I'm looking at you) that catches you off guard.

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user623827169@reddit

The worst part of these airports is there’s not much opportunity to stop and ask if you were cleared to cross because there’s truly never a break in the radio. So I use cues like “ground 121.9 on the other side” or if I do remember hearing “left on E” which is on the other side of the runway crossing, then generally that should confirm my “I’m 99% sure we were cleared to cross” But if im less than 99% sure and the other guy is also not sure, then definitely stop

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TxAggieMike@reddit (OP)

Incursions at the larger airports is getting a mention... especially the one that happened about this time of year in 2024 where an AAL jet kept going across a runway at JFK because that's what had happened so often before. And that was a situation where both the CA and the FO were not maintaining proper situational awareness and the incursion happened.

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dbhyslop@reddit

I was just reading the NTSB report on this ahead of my CFI ride. There was huge expectation bias here, they thought they were getting 31L and even briefed the route to it. When they got the taxi clearance to 4R they acknowledged the change and briefed again, but primacy took hold while they were distracted.

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Lordborpo@reddit

I just did this!

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The_Rad1x@reddit

We had applied an MEL for the bleed system. Something affecting the PACKs or Engine Bleed on one side. The MEL read something to the effect of “during taxi or when operating the engine at idle in flight close the bleed / pack valve.” There was also a restriction on the MEL saying we couldn’t fly into known icing since we might have to turn the bleeds air off. The captain and I discussed the MEL and we have two completely different understandings. His understanding was that closing the bleeds valves was a condition of being dispatched for a flight with icing. I’m not sure why you would be forced to close bleeds valves at idle power when flying into icing conditions. I read it as you have to close the bleeds valves regardless (when applicable) and DONT be dispatched into icing conditions. The captain calls MX control. He in an extremely confirmation biased way explains the MEL to the MX guy saying “I’m reading this MEL as I don’t need to do it unless we’re in icing conditions, do you agree?” The Mx guy says “uhhhh yeah” in a not very confident tone. I told the captain I disagreed with both of them but it’s his call. Wasn’t a big deal, weather was 10 and clear and we were doing two 50 minute flights. On the taxi out, sure enough, at idle power we get the ECAM. We go through the MEL steps and sure enough the ECAM goes away. The captain looks at me and says “I guess you were right.” He should not have called the maintenance controller looking for confirmation. He should’ve asked the maintenance controller what he thought about when to apply MEL procedures as an open ended question. The captain set himself and the Mx guy up for failure by trying to influence his perspective and confirm his bias that the MEL was not needed. And the reason he was trying to force his confirmation bias onto the Mx controller? He was a reserve captain who got called out for these two 50 minute round trip flights and he wanted to go home as fast as possible.

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StrangeCow6712@reddit

I flew an airplane with the same tail number for my first 50 hours, then when I switched airplanes I always finished my radio calls with that same tail lol

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FlyJunior172@reddit

I’ve been known to do this, except try 400+ hours on a single airframe at a tower. Not uncommon to repeat the tail instead of the field and an untowered field (in addition to getting the tail wrong on an airframe switch).

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Insaneclown271@reddit

Had a captain on a 777 brief (the left engine was having oil issues) that if we had an engine failure it would probably be the left engine. I said nothing but in the back of my brain I was thinking red light. But that’s the whole point. We understand the threats involved in our every day operation.

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bigplaneboeing737@reddit

I just always assume I’m gonna get 27R in ORD….

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SpaceGump@reddit

Confirmation bias happens every day in an airplane. In the military we do annual emergency procedure sims where they go into the operating manual and pull out some of the most obscure shit. When we experience the malfunction in the actual plane we sometimes get the indications we had in the simulator but other times we are expecting something and it never happens leading us to downplay a malfunction because our expectations were not met or to jump into actions without diagnosing because we think we know what the malfunction is based off of the initial indications. In both cases the remedy is to get the aircraft safely away from the ground and do some analysis. Often I will use the least experienced crew members or those who are not familiar with the issue as a check to my experience. The conservative response rule is often the appropriate answer and the safest.

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FossilFuelBurner@reddit

Solo survey flight taking off early morning from an uncontrolled field that my company is at, but I’m not based at. At home I ride my motorcycle to work, here I barely rolled out of the hotel bed, then practically slept in the Uber to the plane. Line picked up inside the neighboring delta 2.5 miles east of our runway. I was at about 1000 upon calling the delta. Atc told me “…climb 1500…” I have no idea what I read back, but I know it wasn’t corrected. So naturally I descend to my normal 500ft agl cruising altitude. I remember thinking hell yeah this controller knows what’s up, but I had heard what I wanted to hear, and it conformed exactly with the way I was used to flying. Immediately I’m met with (sternly but nicely all things considered) “ why are you at 500, I said 1500, I have traffic departing and in the pattern, immediate left 360, let me know when you’re at 1500” Well that definitely woke me up. I immediately complied and apologized, then gave another “sorry my head was up my ass” on the way out and never heard another word about it. (The coincidence of filing a NASA for an incident at Ellington wasn’t lost on me) I realized, I’m more of a creature of habit than I had thought. Then regardless of whether I’m home (in my usual routine) or away, I best not even start the preflight until I get some blood pumping and wake the hell up. Additionally, early on I realized I had a bad habit of just turning the ol brain off as soon as the wheels touched down. That was absolutely in relation to long hot days, and not being used to that kind of work. Never had any problems, but I kicked myself a couple times after atc said something and it just went right out the window and I had to give em the say again. Just learned to tell myself literally “we’re not at the hangar, the prop is still spinning, keep it together for 2 more minutes”. Although there was one day that was particularly hot, like flying in my boxers still dripping sweat kind of hot. Whatever came out of my mouth when trying to read back taxi instructions must have sounded like I had a stroke because tower came back laughing then telling me “it’s hot up here too we’re all losing our minds a little”. All kinds of factors can lead to that lack of attention in what you’re doing, thankfully I didn’t learn any lessons the truly hard way.

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jawshoeaw@reddit

damn you had a couple swiss cheese holes ready to line up! Sleep deprivation is a killer. but good that you're aware

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swakid8@reddit

Landed in runway 6 BDL while back. I had briefed taxi to the gate via C, S cross runway 15/33 when cleared to the gate. Well I landed runway 6, ATC gave us C, E, S, cross runway 15/33. Well, I taxied passed E, and kept straight on C like I had briefed. Once we had passed E, we realized we missed our turn and stopped and told ATC that we missed our turn. They said cool, taxi to the gate via C, S, cross runway 15/33…. That’s an example of expectation bias….

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redcurrantevents@reddit

I made a wrong turn at ORD once because I was so used to going a certain way. I knew it as soon as I started the turn and told the FO to fess up immediately.

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__joel_t@reddit

Couple of examples: I was doing pattern work with my CFI. Tower informed us they wouldn't be able to accommodate touch and gos that day, only full-stop taxi backs. We accepted. During the first lap in the pattern, I got cleared to land. Right after landing, I dropped the flaps and went full throttle, and I would have taken off again if my CFI hadn't immediately pulled the throttle to idle. I was so used to always doing touch and gos that being "cleared to land" to me meant "cleared to do the thing I wanted." I was doing an evaluation flight shortly before my checkride was scheduled with a different instructor. We did a full-stop landing followed by a taxi back. CFI tells me to do something (I forget what) and he would taxi us back. He then starts taxiing and I point out that tower never gave us any taxi instructions/clearance, so he calls up tower for it and tells me he's just used to getting the clearance after exiting the runway.

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Worried-Ebb-1699@reddit

A lot of pilots who don’t read the notes and assume the glide slope will always ensure a 50’ TCH. LAS 25L is 83’ TCH or something like that. Failure to compensate can cause a bias to occur and a sudden and perhaps dramatic evasive action to land within one’s SOP’s to avoid a GA.

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Gutter_Snoop@reddit

"Complacency" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in professional flying, and that fits into certain biases enough. Like, as an example. I had a "mail" route I'd flown a hundred times before VFR in a crappy airplane with no GPS. I knew the way almost by smell. One day I ended up with a different new-to-me crappy plane, DG precessed faster than I was used to, crosswinds at altitude were stronger than usual. I ended up 20 miles off course and really only figured it out when the flight following controller was like "uhh you know you're about headed into restricted airspace right?" You really have to be on guard *all the time*. Turns out basically everything wants to either kill you or get you violated.

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dieseltaco@reddit

Recently I was doing a checkout for 172s at a new field after doing a bunch of PIC in pipers, and I was waiting for the CFI to get out of the way on the passenger side so I could stash my bag. 🫡

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pilotshashi@reddit

Something different started scribbling 📝

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Esoteric_Prurience@reddit

I think as students we are all taught confirmation bias, especially in regards to navigation. That being said as a student private pilot on my solo cross-country I put myself in a position where I had convinced myself I was over a town that, in hindsight I was obviously not. I had picked out parts of the town I was convinced I was over, ignoring the obvious indicators to the contrary. After realising that I was wrong having not arrived overhead my next waypoint I thought back to my bias ground school lessons and used my knowledge of the local area, and pilotage, to work my way back on course. I was glad I made that mistake as I still remembered the fear I felt knowing I was lost and it was up to me to solve the issue.

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rFlyingTower@reddit

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity: --- Okay, I'll admit to the click bait style title.... But I'd like the group's input to a lesson I'm building which includes discussing **Confirmation Bias** and **Expectation Bias** It's easy enough to find the definitions of this bias, and a few aviation examples. But using AI to do this is....lazy. I prefer real world stuff if I can have it. What I'm hoping to get is some stories I could use to elaborate on the topic and make it a bit more memorable. If you have a story to share on when confirmation bias or expectation bias affected you, please share: - Setup: what was the situation you were in or about to be in? - What form of bias did you get into? - How did it affect your decisions? - What got you to recognize it was happening? - How did you fix the issue? - What was the outcome of your scenario. Pilots at any level are welcome to share in the discussion. --- Please downvote this comment until it collapses. --- I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please [contact the mods of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/flying).