Early this morning, a friend sent yet another link to one of the sad and shocking videos making the rounds right now. With haunting music in the background, the camera sweeps across row after row after row of airliners parked nose to tail in every available space. It seems to go on forever. It’s not just one airport. The video tours most major world airports, airports normally full of planes that are mov­ing rather than moored. It is we who are unmoored in this time of unprece­dented disruption. 

While COVID-19 has devastated the air carrier industry and kept more than a few GA pilots and planes on the ground, personal aviation is in other ways more accessible than ever. For example, another YouTube video documents the heretofore impossible trifecta: a GA pilot gets ATC authori­zation to do “low and go” approaches at — get this — EWR, LGA, and JFK. When the pilot/videographer initially makes this request, the controller laughs, but not the way he would have guffawed just a few weeks ago. “Well, why not?” is the bemused controller’s accommodating answer. I’m not sure which is more amazing: watching the pilot of a light GA airplane skim over the runways at these airports or seeing how eerily quiet and empty they are. 

Disruption and Distraction 

The COVID-19 public health emer­gency that has caused such incredible things had already begun to disrupt daily life when the magazine team met — virtually, by the way — to start planning this issue of FAA Safety Briefing. We agreed that our long-planned focus on human factors was very appropriate. We didn’t know then (or now) how long it would take for “normal” to return, but we adjusted the plan to include topics like stress. In “Passing the Stress Test,” I wrote about the Janus-like duality of stress, with its capacity to both motivate and debilitate. In thinking more on this topic — hard to do otherwise when stress surrounds us like a thick layer of persistent stratus — I pondered the idea of the choices we can make. No pilot willingly chooses to be grounded in the aeronautical sense, but all of us can choose to stay grounded in terms of outlook. As phrased on a motiva­tional plaque I once had, we rarely get to choose what happens to us. But we can always choose how we deal with it. 

Fight/Flight, or Freeze 

The “fight or flight” dichotomy is one of the most basic choices wired into the human brain. When stress sends a batch of hormones careening around the brain like so many loose marbles, impulse sometimes pushes us into combat. Other times it commands evasion. A third wired-in reaction is the frozen I-can’t-believe-my-engine-just-quit pause. 

React or Respond 

For a given situation, any of the three reactions described above could help or hinder a good outcome. Much depends not so much on the imme­diate reaction, but on what hap­pens next or, put another way, how you respond after you have made it through the initial reaction. 

Fixate or Fix 

There are many ways to respond to a stressful situation or event, but the two I want to note are “fixate” vs “fix.” When things go awry, whether on the global scale of the pandemic or the personal scale of confinement, it’s easy to fixate on what’s wrong. Just as in instrument flying, though, fixation is not a helpful approach. It may not be possible to fix the source of the stress. But, as proper instrument flying procedure teaches, we can choose to stop fixating. Only by looking around is it possible to get a solid fix on an attitude that puts you back in control, and a bearing that allows you to safely navigate through the turbulence. 

Stay healthy and choose to stay grounded in serenity … this too shall pass. (FAA Safety Briefing – JulAug 2020)