[Flyin'Dutch']

A lot of people focus on what went wrong but a lot less so on what the root cause was, and that really is the thing of interest.

To miss putting a fuel cap on and taking off is really a very different issue than taking off with balast attached to the wings.

[Miscellaneous]

The potential consequences may be, @Flyin'Dutch'. The reason for the 'lapse' in concentration not so much. I think you are at risk of confusing the potential disastrous outcome with the cause of the error?

I know, as many here do, of an examiner who managed to take off with a tow bar attached. I have also seen an instructor take off in a glider with the tail dolly still attached. And no one on the ground noticed it either until too late.

I think the OP is beating himself up enough and displays an understanding of his error. He's not being blasé.

The error in itself does not warrant hanging up his headset.

[JAFO]

To miss putting a fuel cap on and taking off is really a very different issue than taking off with balast attached to the wings.

I'm not convinced that's the case, FD. I think they are both acts of omission which could easily happen to anyone of us regardless of age and, to some degree, experience. It is probably more likely that these aspects would be omitted by a higher hours pilot - particularly if they have more hours on this type in this environment. Nevertheless, I see no difference in the act of leaving a fuel cap off and the act of forgetting to untie ballast.

[Miscellaneous]

Indeed @JAFO, the subconscious idea that there should be a correlation between error and consequences is an understandable human reaction.

Doesn't make it so, though.

[flyingearly]

To miss putting a fuel cap on and taking off is really a very different issue than taking off with balast attached to the wings.

I'm not convinced that's the case, FD. I think they are both acts of omission which could easily happen to anyone of us regardless of age and, to some degree, experience. It is probably more likely that these aspects would be omitted by a higher hours pilot - particularly if they have more hours on this type in this environment. Nevertheless, I see no difference in the act of leaving a fuel cap off and the act of forgetting to untie ballast.

Just playing devil's advocate for a moment though; there is a world of difference between taking off with a missing fuel cap (weighing a few hundred grams) and two ballast tanks attached to the wings.

For the latter, did you not notice anything while taxiing? Presumably there would have been quite a bit of noise, banging about; the aircraft would have not tracked straight?

While I'm firmly in the 'put it behind you and learn from it' camp, I would be more worried that I didn't notice it during taxiing - when it would be making itself visible - rather than when I started the engine.

[A4 Pacific]

It’s absolutely correct to say the magnitude of the consequence often bears no relationship to the magnitude of the error. As humans we are all hard wired to make ‘stupid’ mistakes. For the vast majority of people those mistakes are inconsequential, and are easily put right. I think of it as screwing up the paperwork, tossing it in the bin and starting again. However when pilots make similar, simple mistakes, people can and do die. Sometimes very many people!

All that really proves is that pilots are human! Shock, horror!

What those truly interested in flight safety try to achieve are strategies to combat/mitigate the human condition by developing knowledge, understanding and strategies to compensate for everybody’s shortcomings. There have been some very good examples already offered. The most important thing is that we all learn as individuals, so we don’t keep repeating the same mistake. But that we also learn as a community so we don’t each have to make every mistake ourselves!

That is a very, very different situation to someone thinking they just aren’t cut out for this. Or them being made to feel they just aren’t cut out for this. In the grand scheme of things, them being ‘faulty’ is considerably less likely than them being ‘normal’.

Just as a final thought. This is how enlightened organisations handle such errors, regardless of the potential consequences. A few years ago, a chain of unusual events meant a single isle Airbus was sitting on the apron with the engine cowls left unlocked. This should have been picked up by the pilot doing the walk round, but was not. Immediately after take off, a very nearly catastrophic sequence of events commenced.

Was that pilot sacked for wreckless incompetence? No, absolutely not and rightly so. He was supported, and has been back flying for quite some time now. Very probably as a much better pilot.

There but for the grace of god, go every single one of us. I tend to get quite anxious when I fly with the very, very few who find that difficult to accept!

Edit to add:

Flying early:

What you are describing is Murphy’s Law. If it can happen, it will happen.

Personally I would find it really interesting to hear a full account of what exactly happened, because it quite likely wasn’t as obvious as you have described?

Maybe it’s even happened before to others. There are very few ‘new’ mistakes in this business!

As I have said. It’s the cowboys who knowingly break the rules that I would ground!

[TopCat]

there is a world of difference between taking off with a missing fuel cap (weighing a few hundred grams) and two ballast tanks attached to the wings.

Superficially of course, you're right. A little hole in the top of the wing versus two bloody great weights flapping around. Knowing that there was no bad outcome, the latter is almost comical. But a missing fuel cap can also be fatal - fuel gets sucked out of the tank in flight that way and you could end up simply running out of fuel in flight.

No... assuming that the aircraft in question was low wing - I think the two situations are exactly equivalent, as they have key points in common:

- distraction, or unusual sequence of events at walk-around time.
- problem not easily seen from the cockpit.

We're all going to get distracted from time to time. Simply being determined to not get distracted is going to fail eventually.

What is needed is a process that catches distractions. For instance, in my case, my pre-flight system now includes starting the external walk-around again if anything distracts me half-way through. And where I use checklists, I start the page again if I get distracted part way through the page.

This is why I suggested earlier in the thread that rather than wringing his hands in mortification at doing a dumb thing, the OP analyses exactly where the distraction took place, and what prevented him catching the omission.

Mind you, if it was a high-wing aircraft, then he needs to look around a bit more, early in the take-off roll as well as all the above.

[TopCat]

wreckless incompetence

That's the best kind

(Strongly agree with the rest of that post.)

[Flyin'Dutch']

We all make mistakes!.

The art of making sure that things don't go terminally wrong is to try and observe the dominoes and catch them in time.

Taildolly on - dunnit, caught by asking for a final check before launching. I have also done much more stupid things such as taking off from a short strip with a duff plug which did not clear 'because it always does, doesn't it?

I am the last one to chastigate anyone for making a mistake.

For Taking off with a ballast tank under each wing there have been a lot of dominoes which had to fall over.

Starting with using ballast tanks to 'tie the aeroplane down'

Suggesting to the OP that this is something that is just 'one of things' and never to happen again is short changing them and taking some good learning opportunities away.

[TopCat]

For Taking off with a ballast tank under each wing there have been a lot of dominoes which had to fall over.

No, I think on the contrary, the whole point is that there's only one domino needed, which is why the bad thing happened.

Leaving aside this...

Starting with using ballast tanks to 'tie the aeroplane down'

... which we probably all agree is ineffective, the only thing that needed to happen was to get distracted at the point in the walk-round where the tie downs are detached.

After that, if it's a low wing aeroplane, it could be very easy to not see.

It's the single point of failure that makes the situation so dangerous. That's why the process itself needs to be improved so that multiple failures would be necessary for the bad thing to happen.

Suggesting to the OP that this is something that is just 'one of things' and never to happen again is short changing them and taking some good learning opportunities away.

Agreed, but I don't see anyone trivialising this situation in this thread.

[TopCat]

Personally I would find it really interesting to hear a full account of what exactly happened...

Me too.

Quite a few people are responding quite thoughtfully, and I think that if the OP is really interested in learning from the experience, and giving something back, the very least he can do is give a bit more detail so that there's something more definite to go on.

Low/high wing, walk-round procedure, distractions, state of mind on the day, etc etc.

Oh, and FTAOD....

Can I blame Covid lockdown syndrome? was it just rust after a long break?

No, and no.

[Morten]

It's really not about forgetting to untie the tie-downs but about not noticing that they are tied on during any of the ground manoevring before take-off.

A filler cap can be the result of a momentary distraction and not noticing a 'plunk' later as it falls off the wing, but there are no other symptoms during normal ground handling before take-off.

Assuming that the tanks were firmly on the ground with a rope/cable long enough that they were not suspended in mid-air as the aircraft was parked, the momentary lapse of forgetting to untie must have been followed by failure to observe the increased ground drag at every start/stop as well as over the terrain they were dragged across. Depending on what surface the aircraft was operated on, what is often already a bumpy ride would have lead to rather more shocks on the wings transmitted to the occupants and apart from the dragging would have shaken the cockpit in a different way from normal, as well as probably imparting left/right turns. The ground roll was probably significantly longer as well. None of this due to the additional mass (30kg is just an extra 50l of fuel in each wing which depending on aircraft type, can be insignificant) but due to the dragging of said mass across uneven ground. Actually flying with the extra mass was probably less noticeable than taxiing with it.

That probably translates to a good 5-10 minutes of rather unusual ground handling which was not noticed.

And that is what I would potentially be concerned about. Not the initial mistake to forget the tie downs but the failure to recognise that something was very different about the aircraft during those 10 minutes afterwards. Checklists and mnemonics can help to avoid mistakes but do not replace a 'is everything as it should be' feeling.

For sure, I'd not hang up my headset but I do think that @Flyin'Dutch' slightly more fundamental questions should be thought about.

[Miscellaneous]

@flyingearly I agree it's surprising it wasn't noticed on taxy. It's equally surprising an examiner didn't notice a towing bar attached to the nosewheel. All not uncommon occurrences. Theres a video so.ewhere of an aircraft flying with tiedowns attached.

I'd suggest these occurrences can be explained similarly to touching down gear up with gear warning at deafening decibels, airline pilots landing on taxyways, or even military pilots landing at the wrong airport.

[TopCat]

It's really not about forgetting to untie the tie-downs but about not noticing that they are tied on during any of the ground manoevring before take-off.

I'm afraid I strongly disagree with this. Although I'd agree that it's a little odd that taxying didn't feel wrong, I don't think it comes anywhere near being odd enough to be the primary cause of the omission.

Taxying on grass, for instance, feels very different from taxying on concrete, and taxying on soft, wet, long grass feels very different from taxying on dry short grass (another reason we need more detail).

So without more information I don't think you can rule out any oddness in the ground handling simply not being odd enough to raise enough of a concern.

So describing this as a

failure to recognise that something was very different about the aircraft during those 10 minutes afterwards.

is speculation.

It also suggests that those pilots with great sensitivity to the way an aircraft handles would have spotted the problem, and implies that if you don't spot it, then the pilot must be an insensitive type.

This is a slippery slope. You don't have to get too far down this path before effectively you're saying something along the lines of "well I wouldn't have made this mistake because of my superior abilities", and that is called complacency.

[Flyin'Dutch']

@Morten has got it.

Amen.