405 Aviation Safety Lessons from Todd Conklin: Human Factors, Margin & Mistakes

In this episode of Aviation News Talk, we begin with the developing details In this episode of Aviation News Talk, Max sits down with renowned safety expert Dr. Todd Conklin to explore some of the most important aviation safety lessons pilots can learn from Human & Organizational Performance (HOP)—a framework rooted in human factors, systems thinking, and the realities of how people actually perform in complex environments. Todd's work has shaped safety programs across multiple high-risk industries, and in this episode he explains how these ideas translate directly to aviation, both for professional pilots and general aviation flyers.

Todd begins by reframing how pilots should think about safety. Safety is not a static condition or something you "have" because you passed a checkride; instead, safety is a capacity, similar to fuel, that must be built, protected, and constantly replenished. This capacity includes time to think, margin for error, resilience, and the ability to recover when something goes wrong. When pilots allow that capacity to shrink—through rushed planning, complacency, or pressure—they lose the very buffer that keeps small mistakes from becoming accidents.

Max and Todd dive into the first HOP principle: people make mistakes. This simple truth is foundational in human factors but often overlooked in aviation culture. Many pilots implicitly believe that if they just try hard enough, they can deliver perfect performance, yet every flight includes small deviations and errors. The key isn't eliminating mistakes—it's ensuring the system has enough margin so those mistakes don't cascade into failures.

This leads to the second principle: blame fixes nothing. Todd explains that blaming pilots for errors obscures the real question: What conditions made that mistake possible? Max shares an example from a flight club where an accident prompted a search for someone to blame. Todd counters that meaningful safety improvement comes from understanding system interactions rather than assigning fault.

They then discuss the third HOP principle, learning is vital. High-reliability organizations routinely debrief their successes—not just failures—because the same system dynamics that allow a successful flight may also allow a failure under slightly different conditions. Todd notes that curiosity is one of a pilot's most important safety tools; pilots who continuously seek to understand their environment develop stronger mental models and better decision-making under pressure.

The conversation then moves into one of the most powerful HOP principles: context drives behavior. Todd explains that people behave differently depending on the setting, expectations, and formality of the environment. Airline pilots operate within a highly formalized culture—uniforms, checklists, cockpit procedures, and CRM—that creates predictable behavior and reduces variability. GA pilots, by contrast, have to formalize their own environment, since they don't benefit from the same structure. Simple habits, like always dressing appropriately, using a structured briefing, or maintaining personal minimums, help create a context that supports safer flying.

Finally, Todd discusses the last major HOP principle: how leaders respond matters. For pilots, this includes how they respond to their own errors, near-misses, and close calls. Near-misses, Todd says, are "gifts"—accidents without consequences—that provide an ideal opportunity to identify weak controls or missing margin. He distinguishes between near-miss good, where robust controls allowed recovery, and near-miss lucky, where the pilot simply avoided disaster by chance. Both are important signals, and both must be studied with honesty and without blame.

Todd brings these concepts to life with vivid examples, including his well-known "Kenny the Alligator Wrestler" story and his experience working with Admiral John Meyer and the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier operations. Through cross-training, structured practice, and better system understanding, the Navy dramatically reduced ground-handling incidents on carrier decks—reinforcing how resilience and margin must be intentionally built into high-risk operations.

Max and Todd close by emphasizing that aviation safety advances through learning, innovation, curiosity, and margin, not perfection. For pilots, this means consistently planning ahead, making conservative decisions, building buffer into every phase of flight, and embracing the idea that mistakes are inevitable—but accidents don't have to be.

This episode equips pilots with a deeper understanding of human factors, risk management, and the practical application of HOP principles, offering a richer, more realistic framework for staying safe in today's increasingly complex flying environment.

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