That’s all fine, until the day that 1 percent of the time comes home to roost. Maybe you stop using the checklist because you think you already know it by heart. Maybe you just wag the ailerons rather than inspect each hinge carefully. Maybe you stop getting down on the pavement to check the brakes up close and personal, like you should. After dozens of snoozer preflights, maybe you don’t look as closely, sharply, and critically as you used to. Routine checks that rarely, if ever, reveal anything amiss tend to degrade in quality over time. But this leads to complacency, and that is a problem. Well, actually, that’s not really the problem. But here’s the problem: Ninety-nine percent of the time, you won’t find anything wrong on preflight, because nothing is wrong. Trust me, if there’s anything wrong with an airplane, it’s much better to discover it on the ground than deal with it in the air. This preflight mindset can-quite literally-save your life. That’s what I want you to tell yourself each and every time you walk across the tarmac to preflight.

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