As pilots, we navigate a world of inherent risks, constantly seeking 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 unwavering 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.
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 flight risk during aircraft approaches and landings.
CJP’s Safe To Land and data monitoring initiatives were inspired by Flight Safety Foundation’s (FSF) 2017 safety report, which explored psychological factors impacting pilots’ “intentional noncompliance with critical 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 Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) underscores that 43% of all General Aviation (GA) mishaps from 2012 to 2021 were associated with the approach and landing phases of flight.
So, given all the hours of training and check rides that high-performance and professional-level pilots go through, why are pilots still having mostly preventable accidents on approach and landing? According to the FSF study, training, experience, and culture regarding the go-around are major contributing factors.
The go-around, an essential and standard maneuver when an approach or landing is unsafe, is often forgotten after the check ride. Speaking from my own experience, I busted my first type rating after a bungled VOR approach. I bugged an incorrect localizer frequency and struggled to troubleshoot the issue. At the same time, in the simulated soup and at MDA — instead of recognizing the go-around as my get-out-of-jail-card option — it took my DPE to remind me, “Perhaps you want to go around?”
The FSF’s findings echoed my mentality – stable or unstable, pilots and crews wanted to land the plane. Crew’s noncompliance with go-around procedures, get-there-itis, and industry culture accepting or tolerating noncompliance reinforced those habits and patterns. Sprinkle in minimal real-world go-around experience, fear of go-around risks, and challenging ATC instructions in a high workload environment, and all of this adds up to pilots making ALAs instead of go-arounds.
Charlie and the CJP Safety Committee were concerned about the high rate of runway excursions — 50% of all accidents — among all Citation aircraft operators, including CJP members. They began to wonder what habits Citation pilots had developed that contributed to these runway excursions and how they could help pilots be better.
Recognizing that approaches and landings were the predominant causes of accidents or incidents, the CJP Safety and Education Foundation hired the Presage Group in 2021 to survey CJP members and explore what may be contributing to this alarming statistic.
Following the survey, two parallel initiatives were born: Safe To Land (STL) and Flight Data Monitoring (FDM).
STL’s primary goal is not to dictate how pilots should operate their aircraft but to provide them with insights that encourage thoughtful and safe flying. Recognizing the psychological hurdles for pilots, STL added a new “yellow zone” to the traditional approach standards of stable (green) and go-around (red). Pilots can acknowledge the unstable approach issue, attempt to fix it, and then have a commitment point to execute a go-around.
Recognizing that some approaches go unstable below the 200-foot gate and even as late as in the touchdown zone, the STL procedures add to the traditional Stable Approach criteria by including Touchdown Zone Gates for landing factors like floating or drifting and go-around decision points where continuing to attempt to touchdown could result in an overrun. These points are called touchdown point limits, and reference markers on the runway used as visual cues (intersecting taxiways, runway remaining markers, etc.).
In a testament to CJP’s members and STL efforts, while Citation pilots still have ALAs and excursions, CJP members have had zero incidents or accidents since STL’s inception.
STL’s sister initiative, FDM, was created to apply Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) practices that charter operations and airlines were using and bring them to the GA level. By collecting voluntary flight data and aggregating it with data from similar airframes and operating conditions, CJP hoped to identify trends and provide educational insights to its members.
Excitement and early adoption of the FDM program were sluggish compared to STL. Many pilots were apprehensive about the notion of ‘Big Brother’ having access to their flight data, fearing potential repercussions.
Recognizing the valid concerns surrounding data privacy, Precourt reassured, “We’ve taken the precaution of anonymizing data from the very inception of this initiative and have implemented stringent mechanisms to safeguard the anonymity of all contributors.”
“Neither I nor any other CJP personnel can access your individual flight data. We’ve entrusted this responsibility to a designated entity that meticulously upholds the privacy of our system.”
This data’s entrusted guardian is CloudAhoy (now operating as ForeFlight Flight Data Analysis). Their selection was predicated on their data-centric approach to flight analysis and debriefing tools, ensuring that all shared data remains encrypted and securely relayed for comprehensive aggregation and trend analysis.
Another challenge for CJP’s FDM was gathering data across a fleet spanning decades and numerous software and technology iterations. Conventional airlines spend significant sums, well into six figures per aircraft, on capturing and analyzing flight data. Thankfully, one of CJP’s sponsors, AirSync, was able to save significant sums by providing hardware for automatically capturing and securely transmitting flight data through AirSync Web Services to the user’s account and the various third-party analysis services the user has selected, such as Cloud Ahoy.
Previously, CJP tapped Garmin’s MFD data card and newer Citation’s maintenance logging Aircraft Recording System (AReS) recorders to help document how its pilots were flying. Newer AReS II recorders even allowed CJP’s FDM to capture and analyze an extensive array of parameters and data, including speed, computer errors, weight on wheels, flaps, gear position, and throttle position.
A primary objective for CJP’s Safety Committee was to ensure that both programs assist its pilot members in better anticipating flight risks and dealing with them safely. STL is geared towards reducing approach and landing accidents. At the same time, their FDM initiative hopes to inform pilots of areas where they could be bumping up against limits set by their Airplane Flight Manual (AFM), the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), and CJP’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
Exceeding limits such as VMO/MMO during descent, receiving warnings of flap or gear overspeed, G-limit transgressions, and autopilot activations beyond prescribed limits are all data points that FDM captures. This data is then sent near-instantaneously to anonymized databases for review and compared directly to similar airframes and even to FARs to see improvement and risk reduction areas.
“What we’ve learned, both as pilots and through our work with the CJP Safety Committee, is that accidents or incidents typically result from a confluence of factors,” Precourt emphasized. “By scrutinizing our flight performance and exploring this data across various metrics, we are embracing a trend already prevalent among the newest generation of student pilots. They can compare their flight performance to their peers, receive constructive debriefs, and evolve into safer, more skilled aviators.”
FlightSafety has collaborated with CJP to introduce a Safe To Land Course, and Gulfstream is now working with FlightSafety to set up its version of Safe to Land. Additionally, Honda has launched a version of Safe To Land.
The FlightSafety course comprises a one-day simulation training program, encompassing two hours of classroom instruction and two hours in the simulator. It includes 11 scenarios designed to simulate “insidious instabilities” and real-life borderline cases where the choice between “Continue” and “Go Around” is critical.
“The FlightSafety course underscores the imperative of monitoring the gates,” Precourt emphasized. “Many of these scenarios are geared towards ensuring that the pilot is cognizant of the gate limits and respects them.”
“While not every scenario yields a straightforward ‘black or white’ answer, there will be cases where either a ‘Go Around’ or a landing would have been acceptable. However, our aim is to inculcate the awareness that both options exist and the potential need for a ‘Go Around.’ Rather than persisting blindly and realizing later that ‘I barely managed to stop this thing!’”, Precourt added.
Precourt anticipates the rich insights and possible insurance savings the accumulated data will unveil in the years ahead. CJP is already identifying areas where awareness and training can be further enhanced for Citation pilots.
With comprehensive and statistically robust data, the team has discerned a trend. While straight-in approaches for CJP pilots have improved due to three years of Safe To Land training, VFR traffic patterns are often executed too tightly and without stabilization, contravening the SOPs.
Data analysis and mapping show that pilots can achieve stabilization above the 500-foot decision gate if they adopt a less constricted base turn. At the annual convention, Precourt was educating pilots to ensure a minimum 2.5-mile radius for the base turn, which positions them to roll out at 600’ AGL and allows them to fly stabilized for two gates for the final approach.
With Citation Jet Pilots embracing more disciplined approaches to safer flying, they are paving the way for other owner-pilot associations to utilize flight performance data to protect lives and aircraft and maybe — just maybe — lower insurance premiums for being safe to land.
