Real-Life Decision Making
You are an aviation accident investigator. As part of your job duties,
you are on call 24 hours a day. One night you are woken up by the phone ringing.
You answer the phone and find out that there has been an accident involving
an American aircraft in Brazil. The details of the crash are explained to
you. There was a transmission from the pilot of a commercial aircraft. He
said that he was having engine problems. There were good weather conditions
at the time. Ten minutes later the aircraft crashed in the countryside.
You work with a small team of investigators. You have all been doing a
lot of overtime lately. There was a high profile helicopter crash in your
area, and that is drawing most of your resources. There is a lot of pressure
on your team to make progress in the investigation and explain what happened.
Now you are faced with a crash in a foreign country as well.
You must decide whether it is valuable to dispatch to the crash site in
Brazil right away. If you send an investigator, it will put even more pressure
on the team that is investigating the local helicopter crash. If you keep
your resources on home soil, you are left to depend on the Brazilian investigation
team.
In Brazil, the level of experience and the methods of investigation differ
from those you practice. If you don't go, you might lose valuable evidence
in Brazil. Arriving on the scene quickly is vital to preserving and observing
the evidence before it is exposed to the elements.
"To make quality decisions you must not be afraid of asking peers, subordinates
or superiors for advice, but as a subject matter expert, the final decision
is often yours alone," says George Carney. He is an air accident investigator
for the British army.