Kenny Keller explains get-there-itis, the dangerous pilot mindset that pushes toward a destination despite rising risk. He shares a helicopter diversion that went well and urges pilots to listen when crew members say a flight is stupid. The US Helicopter Safety Team lists this among recurring causes of accidents.
Don't succumb to get there itis or get home itis, whatever you want to call it. I just got home. We all want to get home, right? Went on the helicopter cross country trip, got delivered safely, did divert one night and you know, it wasn't so bad. Sometimes just stopping, calling it off isn't so bad. But that, that damn get their itis. Don't succumb to get theiritis. This disease is common among pilots. This is the first I've ever heard it called disease and I like that because it is a freaking disease. It clouds the vision and impairs judgment by causing a fixation on the original goal or destination combined with a total disregard for any alternative courses of action. And there's Heather. We can talk about this over and over. You don't just learn this one time in your private pilot training and never think about it again. I've been thinking about this one for the last 24 hours each of these. I've been thinking about them, you know, overnight and prior to doing them the next day. And don't succumb to get theiritis and calling it a disease. You know, in my mind I've been trying to figure out why, you know, and I think part of mine still comes from the jobs I've done in the past where you just, you have that thing inside of you where you, you want to get it, you want to, you plan it, you spend all that time planning and you want to get there. And whether it's just because you want to get back home, like in my case, I have a. I got plenty of reasons I want to get back home, right? But the other night when we diverted heck, we hotwired a place and I got one of the most incredible deals on a hotel I've ever got. And we actually loved it. It was this freaking incredible room and everything was fine and dandy went, had a nice meal at a place right beside the hotel, just walking distance. And it was perfect, right? But there's something again, I guess this is coffee with Kenny, right? Day 194. I guess I can't go in here and pull a whole psychological thing up on why we do it, but I just. What's been on my mind is we can talk about it, we can say it. I can read this to you out of an email. But the get home itis is real. Get there itis is real. I still like to stumble up know what stem of the brain or what part of the brain causes us to get to get this feeling and it Just comes over you. It just does. And tomorrow I'll show you a picture of the diversion we did. But it's so easy for somebody else just to go, why are you doing this? And, you know, they taught that in ems, which was one of the great things they said, you know, use the term this is stupid. And this could be the pilot, this could be any crew member, anybody involved in that flight. And they said, you know, you want to kind of break that ice or break that, that mode because you get in that dangerous mode and everybody can kind of get into it together and you need one person to snap everybody out of it. And they said, just say this is stupid. Flat out, tell your crew this is stupid. Right? Because sometimes it just takes that second opinion of that other person to make you wake up and realize, you know what? This flight isn't worth it. There isn't any flight out there that's worth it. It doesn't matter what you're doing. It's. If you're going to crash prior to getting to your destination and kill yourself, what is the freaking point? Whether it's a fun flight, a transport flight, you're doing ems, you're flying for fun, you're fairing a helicopter, but man, this is, it's so real. It is so freaking real. Haven't had a lot of comments the last few days. Like some more people jump in and interact because you know what? These are the seven things put out by the US Helicopter safety team. And if you think these are all just too basic, you need to think again. They know why and they're studying and looking at reports, right? So if they put out seven different things that they're saying, let's, we need to look at these seven things to start reducing these accidents. People should be, you need to be. Or we should all be paying attention. We need to read them, we need to think about them. And it's not just learn at one time. It's reevaluating ourselves all the time or evaluating ourselves on every single flight, thinking about get homitis thinking about get there itis and realize the alternative, calling it off is not so bad sometimes, you know, the stress that we put on ourselves trying to push forward and many times we make it through and you get there safely and you go, oh, wow, well, I'm glad we made it, you know, but you know, deep down in your gut, you shouldn't have done it, right? Deep down you go, man, why didn't I just, why didn't I just call that flight off earlier? But you know what? We're human beings. And whatever reason it is that causes us to do this stupid get there, itis. It's just ingrained in us, right? You want to be home, you want to sleep in your own bed, you want to be in your own surroundings, or you want to get home to see your family, or you got something going on the next day that you're going to miss your child's ball game or something if you don't get home that night. There's a million freaking reasons why it happens. So the reasons are valid when we want to get home. The reasons are valid when we want to get there. But is it worth losing our lives? This is about fatal accidents. It's about people not making it to their destination. It's about people not calling the flight off, knowing when to go. We need to turn around, we need to divert, we need to land. All right, well, we got one more coming up tomorrow. So like, and subscribe the channel and just think about it. Get homitis. You know, in this time of the year we got all these thunderstorms going on. It's. We're setting record heat, right? Record temperatures. What's that mean for us in this area? It means thunderstorms that happen just about pretty much every day. As that day heats up, they just build up. So what happens? All right, that concludes day 194. We'd like to see you tomorrow in day 195. Please comment below. Please click the like button if you disliked the video. Dislike. Twice. Twice. Twice. That's right. Peace out. Hell yeah. See you tomorrow.
