The Urge to Act When Things go Wrong, and When You Shouldn’t (Yet)

The pilots had a problem with one engine. But they shut down the other one.

In 1989, a British Midland Boeing 737 experienced severe vibrations and smoke after its left engine suffered a fan blade failure.

The crew believed the right engine was causing the problem.

So they reduced its power.

The noise and shuddering stopped.

That seemed to confirm they’d made the right decision.

But, they hadn’t.

They’d reduced power on the healthy engine. And eventually, they shut it down.

When the damaged engine later lost power on approach, the aircraft crashed short of the runway.

Tragically, 47 people lost their lives.

The investigation explicitly identified the crew’s premature response before fully assessing the engine indications as a contributing factor.

The pilots were trying to do the right thing, responding to a genuine threat.

But the way they reacted introduced another problem.

Sometimes, it’s not the original problem that gets us into trouble.

➡️ It’s what we do trying to fix it.

Been there, done that. Many times! In fact, we talked about the traps of decision making under pressure recently:

6 Techniques to Master Decision-Making When the Pressure’s On

When something goes wrong in the cockpit and instinct takes over, we want to ACT.

And often, that’s exactly what the situation demands.

But under pressure, it’s surprisingly easy to become so focused on what you’re trying to achieve that you lose sight of how you’re achieving it.

Here’s another example:

Many pilots have the urge to manually fly the aircraft when visual references deteriorate.

It makes no logical sense, yet it happens more than you’d think.

I’ve seen this myself in HEMS.

The answer to “have you actually made the situation safer this way?” is usually pretty obvious.

You just increased your workload at precisely the moment you need that capacity most.

Of course, there are situations where taking manual control is absolutely necessary.

It depends on the situation, the aircraft, automation and relevant procedures.

But the point is that what makes us feel more in control isn’t always what makes us safer:

➡️ The urge to DO something

I think this is where things get interesting.

When something unexpected happens, doing nothing can feel like the wrong response.

We’re trained to recognise problems, make decisions and take action.

But sometimes, that pressure to act can become a problem, or worse:

➡️ Start a chain of more problems.

We might make a control input without fully considering its consequences.

Disconnect automation that’s actually helping us.

Or become so focused on fixing one problem that we stop monitoring everything else.

And suddenly, we’re dealing with two problems instead of one.

Not every situation gives us the luxury of time.

Sometimes we need to act immediately.

Other times, we have more time than our instincts are telling us.

And knowing the difference isn’t always easy.

We’ve all been hammered to death with aviate, navigate, communicate.

And rightly so!

None of this changes those priorities, or the need to follow procedures and take immediate action when required.

But I think there’s another challenge worth talking about.

How do we stop ourselves from making a difficult situation worse?

For me, it starts with recognising that feeling an urgent need to act doesn’t always mean an immediate action is necessary.

When there’s time, even a few seconds, it’s worth asking:

🔸 Is it actually required to act NOW, or does it just feel that way?
🔸 Can my next action make things worse?
🔸 What are the consequences of (not) acting immediately?

Especially the last one.

That’s also where another pilot can make such a difference.

Someone who isn’t caught up in the same thought process might notice something we’ve overlooked.

A quick challenge, a second opinion, or simply verbalising what we’re about to do can sometimes interrupt that instinctive reaction.

Of course, none of that should delay an action that’s genuinely time-critical.

The biggest takeaway here:

Don’t let one problem become two.

There’s a difference between responding quickly and responding without thinking.

And under pressure, that distinction can become surprisingly difficult to recognise.

We can’t always prevent mistakes, unexpected events or situations that demand an immediate response.

But we can become more aware of how pressure influences our actions.

Sometimes that means acting immediately.

And sometimes it means taking just enough time to consider whether our next action might create a bigger problem than the one we’re trying to solve.

Have you ever caught yourself reacting to a problem in a way that nearly made things worse?