Risk management, human factors, and accident prevention as teaching content

The candidate teaches risk management rather than practises it. By the end they will have run a scenario-based block in which a Simulated Student makes a decision, and will have assessed the decision rather than the outcome.

The distinction this lesson turns on: you already manage risk. Teaching someone else to is a different skill, and the most common failure is to demonstrate good judgment in front of a student instead of building theirs.

Element 5's "special considerations while teaching takeoffs and landings" is called out by the ACS itself and is the highest-risk regime a new instructor works in. Do not fold it into element 5 generally.

Element 8 is the one candidates have never considered. They have thought about risk as a pilot. They have not thought about the risk created by sitting next to somebody who is about to do something wrong on purpose so they can learn from it.

US-3.5 requires at least one accident-derived scenario built into a teachable lesson.

Use the base-to-final overshoot. A pilot overshoots the extended centerline turning final, increases the bank, feels the bank steepen and adds opposite aileron while holding the nose up with elevator and adding bottom rudder to tighten the turn, and enters an uncoordinated stall at an altitude from which recovery is not available.

This is the correct choice for three reasons. It is a category rather than an anecdote, so it does not depend on one report. It is the accident a new instructor is most likely to be sitting in. And AC 61-67C with Changes 1 and 2, Stall and Spin Awareness Training, read 2026-08-13, exists specifically to address this training area, which gives the scenario a citable source rather than a war story.

How to teach it, which is the actual content of the element. Do not narrate the accident. Give the candidate the setup and have them build it into a teachable lesson: what the student is asked to notice, at what point the instructor intervenes, what the completion standard is, and what makes the lesson safe to run. Then have them teach a piece of it.

The link forward. This scenario is revisited in lesson 31, the spin ground lesson, and in lesson 33, the cross-controlled stall. Tell the candidate that. Emergency and risk content appearing in more than one phase is US-5.6's requirement, and this lesson is where the thread starts.

~~Open item.~~ Closed 2026-08-14. US-3.5 asks for consistency with "the existing decision-tree training material in this folder." The material was located, the NTSB final report was read in full to settle the facts it rests on, and Erick decided how it is used: the base-to-final overshoot stays as element 9, and the decision trees are used at element 10.

Why the overshoot stays at element 9. The three reasons above still hold and none of them was about availability. It is a category rather than an anecdote, it is the accident this candidate is most likely to be sitting in, and AC 61-67C addresses it directly. Swapping in a single case would have traded a category for a story, which is a worse element 9 even though the story is now fully sourced.

Why the trees belong at element 10. Element 10 asks the candidate to run a scenario-based training block in which a Simulated Student makes decisions. The preflight tree is already exactly that: nine steps from self-evaluation to the go decision, each with a thorough, a partial and a skipped branch. It replaces an improvised scenario rather than adding to the lesson, so no hours change, and every candidate now meets the same decisions instead of whatever the instructor invented that morning.

The apparent contradiction that held this up was not one. The trees say 400 feet AGL and the spin material says 500 feet AGL. Both figures are in the NTSB report and they describe different moments: the sharp left turn began at about 400 feet AGL on GPS data, and two witnesses saw the rapid left roll begin at about 500 feet above the departure end of the runway. The gap between those two numbers is the entire margin the pilot had, and saying so is better teaching than either figure alone.

The one rule for this element. sources/NTSB-WPR11FA316.md is the only permitted source for any fact you state about that accident, and it is the record every North Aero document that touches this accident is being brought onto. The trees are a decision-branching instrument, not a source of facts. Their scenario framing puts the planned departure at 1800 where the accident was at 1928, which is harmless as a planning exercise and wrong as a statement about the flight. If a candidate asks what actually happened, answer from the fact sheet.

Where to find time if you need it, because this lesson is the tightest in phase 1. Element 6 can go to nothing if the candidate is solid on resource management from their commercial training, which most are. Do not cut elements 8 or 9. Element 8 is the only place in the program that treats the risk of instructing itself, and element 9 is a US-3.5 acceptance criterion.

Instructor: FAA-H-8083-9B ch 1 and 10. FAA-H-8083-2A, Risk Management Handbook. AC 61-67C. FAA-S-ACS-25 at FI.I.F. North Aero's two decision-tree files in materials/reused/, and sources/NTSB-WPR11FA316.md, which is the only permitted source for any fact you state about that accident.

Candidate: preparation deliverable.

Room: Meet running, separate devices, headsets.

1. Teach elements 1 to 8.
2. On element 7, do not just list the five hazardous attitudes. Have the candidate say which one they are personally most prone to. Then ask how they would spot it in a student who is not telling them.
3. Element 9. Give the setup, not the lesson. Have the candidate build it.
4. Simulated Student role, element 10. Work from North Aero's preflight decision tree in materials/reused/NWKRAFT_PAVE_Decision_Tree_Training.html. It runs nine steps from self-evaluation to the go decision, and each step offers a thorough, a partial and a skipped branch. Play a branch the candidate did not expect and have your reason ready, which is the same instruction as before; the tree just means you are not inventing it at the table and every candidate meets the same decisions. Do not narrate the accident to them. They are teaching a Student who is making choices, not receiving a case study.
5. Assess the decision, not the outcome, and say that you are doing so. This is the skill.
6. Critique against standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md.

1. Arrive with the deliverable.
2. Build the accident-derived scenario into a teachable block with a stated completion standard and a stated intervention point.
3. Run a scenario-based block in which the Simulated Student makes a decision.
4. Assess the decision rather than the outcome, and say which they are assessing.
5. Self-critique first.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate builds the accident-derived scenario into a teachable block with a stated completion standard, a stated intervention point, and a statement of what makes it safe to run.
2. The candidate runs a scenario in which the Simulated Student makes a decision, and assesses the decision rather than the outcome, saying explicitly which they are assessing.
3. The candidate applies a named risk management tool to a scenario and shows the working, rather than naming the tool and reaching a conclusion separately.
4. The candidate names one hazardous attitude they are personally prone to and one observable behavior that would reveal it in a student who has not admitted to it.
5. The candidate names two risks created by the act of instructing that do not exist when flying alone.
6. The candidate states an intervention point for a takeoff or landing in terms an observer could apply, not as "when it looks unsafe".
7. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Not applicable as a flight lesson. However, this lesson is where the concept of an intervention threshold is taught, and standard 6 assesses it. Every flight lesson from lesson 10 onward carries a real one.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-H-8083-9B, chapter 1, Risk Management and Single-Pilot Resource Management.
• FAA-H-8083-9B, chapter 10, Teaching Practical Risk Management during Flight Instruction.
• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation I, Task F.
• AC 61-67C with Changes 1 and 2, Stall and Spin Awareness Training. Skim it now; you will read it properly before lesson 31.

Deliverable: Write, in half a page, the last time you made a genuinely marginal go or no-go decision. State what you decided, what you decided it on, and whether you would grade the decision differently from the outcome. If you have never made a marginal one, say so and describe the closest you have come.

Used: the base-to-final overshoot, element 9, sourced to AC 61-67C read 2026-08-13.

Available and used: the 2026-07-29 power-off stalls lesson. Use it for element 5. A power-off stall taught to a student is an intentional approach to a stall at altitude with a person at the controls who has not done it before. Ask the candidate what the instructor's own risk management was during that lesson, what the intervention point must have been, and what would have made it unsafe.

Adopted 2026-08-14 at element 10: North Aero's decision-tree training material. US-3.5 names it, it exists, and it is in materials/reused/. The accident facts its two trees rest on were settled against the NTSB final report on the same day and are recorded in sources/NTSB-WPR11FA316.md, which is the only permitted source for any fact stated about that accident. See the closed item under the accident-derived scenario above.

None in this lesson. The stall and spin Clips live on lessons 31, 32, and 33, which is where this scenario is picked back up.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled. It has none.

Standard 2 is the one that transfers furthest. An instructor who grades outcomes teaches students to be lucky. An instructor who grades decisions teaches students to be safe. Most candidates will do the first without noticing, and the recording is the fastest way to show them.

Do not accept a scenario built without an intervention point. A scenario-based lesson with no stated point at which the instructor steps in is not a lesson, it is an experiment.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-3.5, US-2.3
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior
• ✓Common errors listed, including the memorize-the-list failure mode
• ✓Intervention threshold: not applicable as a flight lesson, and the concept is taught and assessed here
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots: none, and the lesson says so
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Includes an accident-derived scenario built into a teachable lesson. US-3.5's second acceptance criterion
• ✓Consistency with North Aero's existing decision-tree training material. Closed 2026-08-14. Located, facts settled against the NTSB final report, and used at element 10 by Erick's decision. The base-to-final overshoot stays at element 9