Taking a flight means entrusting your life to those two people sitting way down there in the front, in a cramped cockpit filled with screens, lights, and buttons...
It’s fascinating, but at the same time, it can be a bit unsettling!
How can we be sure they are up to the task?
First of all, it goes without saying that before ever touching the controls of an airliner, a pilot undergoes a very long (and often very expensive!) training process filled with intense study and exams.
Experience and Continuous Training
The pilots you fly with generally have several thousand flight hours under their belts. If there is a "newcomer" in the crew, they are always paired with a more senior pilot.
Every aircraft requires its own specific Type Rating, which is obtained through a dedicated course of theory and practice (almost always in a flight simulator). During this time, the pilot learns every system of the aircraft and becomes familiar with all normal and emergency procedures.
Once the rating is obtained, the pilot must return to the simulator every six months for several hours to "refresh" emergency procedures and further hone their flying skills.
Checks and Standards
Periodically, pilots attend recurrent training courses to dive into current "hot topics" and study past accidents. This allows them to learn from the mistakes of colleagues to ensure they aren't repeated in the future.
Once a year, they also undergo a "Line Check". During one or more regular flights, they must demonstrate—to an instructor pilot sitting in the cockpit behind them—that they perfectly know all flight procedures and company rules. These are real exams; if a pilot doesn’t meet the minimum standard, they are required to undergo additional training. In the worst-case scenario, failing to reach the required standard can lead to losing their job.Teamwork: SOP and CRM
Work in the cockpit relies heavily on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which pilots must know inside out. This ensures that even if you put two pilots together who have never met before, the distribution of tasks is crystal clear. Each person knows exactly who should be doing what at any moment, especially in complex situations (see also this post).
Another vital pillar of a pilot's job is CRM (Crew Resource Management). Simply put, this means learning to work in perfect symbiosis and harmony, ensuring that every action taken and every decision made—even the most trivial—is the result of collaboration between the two pilots. This working method drastically reduces the possibility of error.
Health and Fitness
Finally, pilots undergo a thorough medical examination every year (or every six months after a certain age) to verify their fitness for duty. Throughout the year, there are also random checks for alcohol or toxic substances in the bloodstream immediately before a flight.
DontWorryFlyHappy!