Book Review: Out of the Ashes

Charlie’s insight into life after an accident is inspiring to learn. Apply the safety lessons now; not after something happens to you. He completely accepts responsibility for the accident and does not play the role of a victim. “You had control, you made choices, and you caused the accident.”

I look forward to writing a case study-based on the book to use in my human factors classes. Many of the elements of courses I teach were present and detectable in advance in Charlie's story.

My favorite quote from Charlie is “That’s the problem with safety: when we take personal responsibility out of the equation, what we put in its place are practices and procedures and solutions that are often bizarre in the lengths they go to apologize for basic human stupidity.”

I have seen that too many times in aviation. Let’s write a new policy or procedure for the choice of an individual. Flight Operations Manuals are getting way to long trying to replace good decision making and risk management.