GA1372

We commend the reporter for their frank and honest report; they didn’t need to tell anyone about what happened but their altruistic decision to do so provides us with the opportunity again to remind others about the need to make sure we don’t become task-focused at the expense of routine flying tasks.

Their report is also a good advert for talking to ATC, who were able to assist in avoiding the DZ. This is good practice whenever possible anyway, but especially if conducting activities such as getting test data when, despite being aware of the extra heads-in time, there is inevitably a degradation of capacity, situational awareness, and potentially lookout. In this respect, if you’re conducting such recording tasks in a multi-seat aircraft then also consider taking someone else in the cockpit to either record the information and/or assist with lookout whilst you concentrate on achieving the data points.

The reporter has identified many of the lessons themselves, and we concur that the issue of the tablet’s location was a part of the problem. We’ve commented before about fixing such devices securely in the cockpit in a suitable and appropriate location to be viewed easily, and CAA Safety Sense Leaflet 29 ‘VFR Moving Map Devices’ gives some additional thoughts on the positioning of devices and their prioritisation when using them as moving map displays.

The reporter’s lesson about assuming that the weather was too bad for parachutists should also be heeded because, as they comment themselves, this was a perilous assumption. Parachutists often jump in what some aviators would consider poor weather conditions but which are in fact suitable for parachuting. As a matter of good practice, conduct thorough pre-flight planning to note DZ locations and always route around them to avoid conflicts whenever possible, but especially if heads-in and recording information as in this case.