Mr Chee briefed the cadets on aviation safety and the culture of safety. He then explained the meaning of an error and the varieties of errors in aviation – what we know as slips, lapses, mistakes and violations. These errors lead to incidents or worse, accidents. Mr. Chee gave examples of incidents and accidents mainly due to human errors.

He further went into examples of accidents by showing a video clip of a midair collision between B757-200 and TU154M near Ueberlingen, Germany on the 2nd of July 2001. After the case study, a discussion and evaluation were done. APFT cadets participated well and were very much involved in the discussion. Obtaining views from a highly experienced ATC member allows for a different perspective on safety for the cadets to draw upon. It is important that cadets realize that they have to work together with air traffic controllers, engineers and crew to ensure that the safety of the passengers is priority.

Aircraft Type: DA 40 Diamond Star Date & Time (UTC) : 30 August 2008 at 1510 hrs
Commander’s Experience: Student, 17 Hours
The student pilot had just landed from a solo flight and was taxiing back to parking. After making a left turn, he became distracted during a radio call and did not notice that the aircraft was still rolling towards the hangar. He tried to turn away but the aircraft’s right wing tip hit the side of the hangar; this caused the aircraft to pivot to the right and the propeller struck the hangar door. The pilot shut down the engine and vacated the aircraft.

Aircraft Type : Reims Cessna F152 Date & Time (UTC) : August 2008, 1300 hrs
Commander’s Flying Experience: 20 hours (of which 20 were on type)
The pilot had been checked out for his first solo flight earlier in the day and subsequently completed the solo flight and a solo navigation exercise without incident. After a break for lunch he undertook a further solo navigation exercise. On returning to the airfield, the aircraft landed heavily, damaging the nose gear leg, the propeller and the engine. The pilot believed he might have flared too early; the instructor did not see the landing.

Aircraft Type : Piper PA28-189 Cherokee
Date & Time (UTC) : September 2008 at 1300hrs
Commander’s Flying Experience: 483 hours (of which 350 were on type)
The aircraft made an approach to land on a wet grass runway with a wind forecast to be 5kts from the left. Just after touching down, a gust of wind, considered by the pilot to be significantly in excess of the forecast, cause it to weathercock to the left. The aircraft drifted towards the left side of the runway despite the application of full right rudder and the left wingtip struck the end of a hedge. The pilot reported that he was unable to regain directional control following the initial weathercock because the grass was wet.

Groundschool was one of the best times to get to know each other. We can proudly say we had tried our best. No one said that CAA syllabus would be challenging. We had no idea how it was going to be. We all had our own way of getting through. Some had “on-class-understanding” and would pick up quickly on the lessons, another had “three-times-textbook” reread technique; others had “practicemake-confuse” technique sitting at the corner; we had “daydreamer man” scribbling mindmap of the lessons; others getting lost with their facts and theory. We even had our own discussion sessions at the Villa in study groups. It was a colourful rainbow of study techniques that helped everybody through.

With APFT’s best ground school performance in the country, so many things had been learnt and cherished from the instructors and each other. Unique phrases from Ground Instructor like “Am I right correct?”, and morning hail unique entrance to the class phrase, “Okaaaay! lets get confused”; It has all aided us to cherish and remember the good and bad times. We learned how to teach each other after a confusing class and support each other after a bad flight. It was important to have a sense of belonging to each other. We would all cherish the time spent to be one team. Dreams realised together!