Silent Erosion
The Science and Economics of Pilot Competency Drift
CEO, Head of Training, Safety/SMS Leadership
Insurers, Regulators
"Roughly 75% of attritional aviation losses trace back to a phenomenon almost no airline measures: the slow, invisible degradation of pilot proficiency between recurrent checks."
Key Metrics
Executive Summary
Pilots peak on check day. Then, in the months that follow, micro-skills decay — manual handling, energy management, threat recognition, CRM under load. Standard compliance audits cannot see this drift; they see only the next check-day spike. This paper synthesizes the operational, human-factors, and actuarial evidence behind drift, shows why human instructors capture less than one third of the relevant signal, and explains the mechanism by which Amris's ORCA engine recovers the missing two thirds. A composite "Carrier B" walks through 18 months of data: where the first weak signals appeared, what intervention they triggered, and the incidents that did not happen as a result.
Key Themes
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