The Silent System Failure

🧠 What is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response to demands.

It could be a TCAS RA, a diversion, or just surviving a four (or six) sector day.

At a biological level, it’s a surge of adrenaline and cortisol preparing you to act.

Your brain doesn’t care whether you’re dodging a lion or holding, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass.

It just knows something’s up.

In aviation, the mix is unique: high-consequence decisions, time pressure, multiple stimuli, and zero room for error.

We’re constantly toggling between routine and the not so routine, and our stress system responds, even if we think we’re ‘fine.’

😵‍💫 Not All Stress is Bad

Here’s the good news — some stress is useful.

Performance doesn’t drop the moment you feel pressure, it initially improves.

This is the Stress-Performance Curve (or Yerkes-Dodson Law, if you’re trying to impress someone).

A little stress? Great for focus and reaction time. 

Too much? You’re on the fast track to tunnel vision and bad decisions.

Go too far over the curve, and performance craters. You’ll see:

• Tunnel vision

• Task fixation

• Poor prioritisation

• Reduced hearing or memory recall

• Snappy comms or full withdrawal

The trick is knowing your personal indicators — the point where you're no longer just working hard, but losing capacity. That’s when resets matter most.

🔍 Acute vs Chronic Stress

⚡ Acute Stress

Triggered by immediate events — windshear, bird strike, medical emergencies, RTOs, or just getting high on the approach. It’s short-term but can feel intense.

Some symptoms include:

• Rapid or clipped speech

• Over-controlling

• Memory blanking (“What’s the frequency again?”)

• Checklist skips

• Reduced comms or task sharing

🪫 Chronic Stress

This is the slow, creeping kind. Fatigue from a bad roster. Ongoing sim anxiety. Health or family issues. It’s always there, in the background eating your capacity.

Signs to watch for:

• Headaches & Fatigue

• Irritability

• Anxiety

• Fixated on perfection or self-criticism

• Feeling behind the jet even in normal ops

• Difficulty concentrating

🚨 When Both Combine

Let’s connect the dots between stress, performance, and flight phases — because the real threat isn’t just ‘being stressed.’

It’s when chronic stress quietly lowers your baseline, and then acute stress spikes at the worst possible moment.

The graph below shows three key layers:

• Total capacity — what you could handle on a good day

• Actual capacity — what you can handle today, already eroded by fatigue or life stress

• Workload spikes — short-term stress from flight phase or go-arounds, TCAS RAs, weather, etc.

Your safety margin lives in the gap between workload and actual capacity.

As chronic stress narrows that gap, a well-timed acute event can overwhelm you. That's the overlap zone — where performance breaks down.

Your capacity isn’t flat — it starts strong and drains over time.

Combine that with rising workload (especially on approach and landing), and you get the classic convergence: low capacity, high demand.

This is why things fall apart late in the day — not because the task is harder, but because you’re already drained.

Aircraft: Boeing 767-300
Route: Miami to Houston
Outcome: Crashed during approach, 3 fatalities!
Findings: Acute and chronic stress collided — and crew performance collapsed.

What happened?
The first officer unexpectedly activated the go-around mode during descent through IMC. Instead of diagnosing the situation calmly, he pitched the aircraft nose down aggressively — leading to loss of control and impact.

NTSB findings included:

• Chronic stress & fatigue:
  The FO had long-term performance issues, poor sim records, was likely under chronic stress and may have felt pressure to prove himself.

• CRM breakdown:
  The captain didn’t recognise or challenge the FO’s incorrect inputs quickly enough. Communication degraded under acute stress.

• Startle effect (more acute stress):
  The FO’s reaction to a perceived stall was immediate and inappropriate. He bypassed standard procedures, skipped diagnosis, and failed to verbalise his actions.

• Task fixation:
  The crew’s attention narrowed rapidly. Basic instrument cross-checks were missed, and the captain became reactive rather than proactive.

Why this matters:

The overlap of chronic stress (long-term pressure, poor sleep, low confidence) and acute stress (unexpected GA mode engagement in IMC) created a capacity overload.

The safety buffer was already gone — and the acute event pushed them past the edge.

🧰 The Stress Survival Kit

Stress management isn’t about being calm — it’s about staying effective when things go sideways.

Here’s how to stay sharp.

🪫 Chronic Stress - Pre-Flight Checks

Tools that keep your baseline strong.

• 🛌 Sleep like a pro
  Blackout curtains. No screens. Caffeine cut-off. Sleep debt = performance tax.

• 📆 Know your roster weak points
  Identify the pairings or patterns that wreck you — and build recovery buffer.

• ☕ Caffeine is not fuel
  Time it for peak workload — not to feel “normal.”

• 🧠 Park personal stress
  2-3 minute mental bracket before duty. Leave it in the carpark.

• 🏃 Move
  Doesn't need to be heroic. Just move your body — clears stress chemistry.

⚡ Acute Stress = In-Flight Recovery Tools

What to do when the bucket starts to overflow.

• 🌬️ Three breaths
  In for 4, out for 6. No one will notice — but you will.

• 🪑 Step back
  Put the seat back. Literally. Break fixation. Reset your framing.

• 🎙️ Verbalise the plan
  “We’ll level at MSA, then trouble shoot.” Say it out loud.

• 📋 Default to basics
  FLY → Navigate → Communicate. Golden Rules > Guesswork.

• 🤝 Use your crew
  “You do radios.” or “You fly, I’ll brief.” That’s leadership, not weakness.

• 🧾 Don’t trust memory
  Write down clearances. Use the checklist. Ask ATC to “say again.”

🍵 Bonus Reset: The “TEA” Tactic

Thought → Effect → Alternative.

Stress isn’t binary — you’re not either “fine” or “failing.”

It’s a curve, and the best pilots I know are the ones who can spot when they’re tipping too far right on the curve — and do something about it.

This isn’t soft flowery stuff. It’s core command thinking.

We brief for engine failures and busy airspace.

But how often do we brief for cognitive overload, for task saturation, or for when you’re the system under stress?

If that raised an eyebrow — good. That’s where the work is.

P.S. One of the best things I did for my stress levels was delete all the news apps on my phone!

Now I read 1440 once a day — and it doesn’t wind me up before a duty 🤣

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