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Navigating the Skies with Confidence:
CJP’s Commitment to Safety
by Tigre Pickett
As pilots, we navigate a world of inherent risks, constantly seek- ing ways to minimize them and ensure the safe return of our precious cargo: our passengers and ourselves. During my first Citation Jet Pilots Association (CJP) annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, I witnessed firsthand the organization’s unwaver- ing commitment to safety through its engaging safety stand-downs and presentations.
I was familiar with CJP’s Safe To Land (STL) efforts. Still, I had a lot to learn about the history of the program and the efforts to use data collected from Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) to reduce approach and landing accidents (ALAs) in their membership and for Citation pilots at large.
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As a newer professional pilot and student CFI, I wanted to learn more about CJP’s safety efforts. So, I spoke with Charlie Precourt, a former U.S. Air Force pilot and NASA astronaut. Charlie also chairs the CJP Safety Committee and co-founded Safe To Land. He described their data-driven approaches to reduce f light risk dur- ing aircraft approaches and landings.
CJP’s Safe To Land and data moni- toring initiatives were inspired by Flight Safety Foundation’s (FSF) 2017 safety report, which explored psy- chological factors impacting pilots’ “intentional noncompliance with criti- cal safety policy” and reticence to go around during unstable approaches or landings.
The FSF study shows that approach and landing account for roughly 65% of all accidents, and over a 16-year period, 83% of runway excursions could’ve been avoided by choosing to go around. Moreover, go-arounds were executed only 3% of the time for unstable approaches.
Even data from the National Trans- portation Safety Board (NTSB) under- scores that 43% of all General Aviation (GA) mishaps from 2012 to 2021 were associated with the approach and land- ing phases of f light.
So, given all the hours of training and check rides that high-perfor- mance and professional-level pilots go through, why are pilots still hav- ing mostly preventable accidents on