Back in the 1980’s I was sitting in the cockpit jump seat of a TWA 727 about to push back for takeoff from LaGuardia. This was the first trip of the month together for this crew. The Captain called for the pre-start checklist, and the flight engineer began reciting it, a list he had probably performed hundreds of times. The Captain turned to him and said, “Please read the checklist–if anybody’s memory is going to fail, I would rather that it be mine.” A statement that has stuck with me for all of my flying since, and most of my ground-pounder life as well. It’s the “why” of we have checklists, whether in the cockpit, the operating room, or on an ocean liner’s bridge.
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