Only Human – News, Analysis, and Insights from the World of Human Performance · Dr. Tony Kern

Addressing the Rise in Aviation Ground Damage (ft. Special Guest Jermaine Cadogan)

·44 min·2 clips

A Take Five pause helped a Navy team avoid snapping an aircraft’s nose gear out of the mud.

1. Only Human episode 85 centers on rising aviation ground damage and ground mishaps. 2. Tony, Jermaine Caddigan, and the Jetstream article from Global Aerospace Insurance drive the discussion. 3. The episode asks whether regulators or front-line training should address aircraft ground damage first. 4. Tony opens with SpinLock’s centrifugal cannon, which launches 154-pound micro-satellites at 5,000 miles per hour. 5. He then cites the NTSB report on Scott Blomquist’s fatal plane crash near Mooresburg, Tennessee. 6. The third news item is Jetstream’s report on rising aviation ground incidents and higher claim costs. 7. Tony says Global Aerospace’s chart shows 64% of worldwide aviation accidents occur on the ground. 8. Caddy says that figure makes sense because aircraft spend more time on the ground than in the air. 9. Tony and Caddy note that ground losses often stay out of the news because they do not always involve fatalities. 10. They describe higher repair costs, consequential losses, substitute-aircraft costs, and unchanged deductibles as key cost drivers. 11. Caddy says workforce shortages have brought in many new technicians with less human-factors training. 12. He links that experience gap to younger supervisors making bigger decisions to satisfy missions and bosses. 13. Tony describes that behavior as a form of normalized or incentivized deviance when shortcuts get praised. 14. Caddy introduces the Aviation Maintenance Never Events Program and its seven avoidable behaviors. 15. He explains that improper movement covers aircraft, stands, ground support equipment, and aircraft surfaces. 16. He details the Take Five Briefing Tool as a one-minute pre-brief, two-minute debrief, and two-minute pause. 17. Caddy tells a Navy story where a paused towing plan avoided a likely broken nose gear and a $2.5 million loss. 18. The conversation has a direct, practical interview style, with Tony pressing on regulation and Caddy answering with field examples. 19. Listeners who manage aircraft, maintenance crews, ramp teams, or safety programs should get the most from it. 20. Listeners seeking entertainment or unrelated aviation news may skip the training-heavy discussion.

As heard by us

A hangar-door scrape becomes a wider business story once downtime, labor, and insurance gaps are counted.

The segment treats a hangar-door scrape less as a simple repair bill than as a business problem, and the iceberg analogy gives that shift real weight.

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Why you'd press play

You want the hidden cost behind an aircraft hangar-door incident, not just the wing repair.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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