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ignored the power levers’ position, sluggish acceleration and extended roll, following procedures precisely. The result was a crash into the Potomac River, with 74 lives lost. WHY things didn’t look right should have been a vital clue.In giving a proficiency check recently, I added an “unsatisfactory” rating for a pilot’s landing, not because the touchdown wasn’t in the zone or the crosswind correction wasn’t applied, but because he landed with a green landing gear light dark. I require a short-final cockpit check of landing readiness, from memory, including verifying gear-down. I had dimmed the gear indicator while he was looking for traffic, maneuvering to final. His procedure check was shortened by familiarity, because he knew the gear was down, just as it had been in the previous three circuits. However, I told him he should have caught the unsafe indication and executed a go-around for troubleshooting;there’s a reason WHY we check the gear on short final. Yes, the gear extension is supposed to take place as part of the stabilized-approach checklist during descent, or perhaps at the final approach fix, but it needs to be confirmed, just in case.In one of our aircraft, the autopilot master switch is very near the controls required for engine shutdown, so it’s easy to bump it to “on.” The starting checklist calls for “autopilot—off” before initiating start, and during taxi one hot day, when I had gone through engine start from memory to get some air moving, I noticed “wind” causing my ailerons to move around as I turned down the taxiway. It wasn’t the wind; the autopilot switch was “on”, activating heading mode, and the control wheel was following the heading bug’s selection, despite my efforts to correct it. The checklist item is there for just such a reason, so that the autopilot will not beactivated as soon as the avionics master switch is turned on.Perhaps one of the greatest “WHYS” we need to remember is why two crew members are required for most operations. It isn’t because the aircraft normally needs two people to perform all the tasks of piloting. That second crewperson is a resource, a very important one, not a back-up device to sit idly by in case his or her services are required when the primary pilot is incapacitated. The PNF is employed to verify the PF’s actions, to make checklist call-outs, to double-check ATC instructions, to be a barrier against blindly following a procedure that dooms the flight. Do not ignore the WHY of regulations and operating procedures, because they were developed for very good reasons. We must not worship their flow of order, in a perfunctory manner that simply satisfies completion. Instead, always know th•e intent of the course of action. Piloting requires thinking, not just acting. T&TSpecialized Aero Quarter Page 4/C AdWinner Aviation Inc. Quarter Page4/C AdOCTOBER 2016TWIN & TURBINE • 15