What if the secret to a safer world isn't perfection?
We’ve long been taught that to avoid mistakes, we simply need to be prepared, focused, and careful. That idea, however, ignores a fundamental truth of our existence: to be human is to be fallible. The aviation industry understands this better than anyone, and this insight is why they’ve built one of the safest systems on Earth
The safety record of early commercial aviation was a stark contrast to what we see today.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation 1990 saw approximately 47 fatal airliner accidents recorded over approximately 5 million flights compared to just 16 fatal accidents in 2024 recorded over an estimated 40 million flights.
This isn’t because pilots are perfect, or trained to perfection. It’s because through decades of research and investigation into human error, the system itself was redesigned to be more forgiving. Instead of a single point of failure, the cockpit became a series of redundant systems; a safety net built to catch and contain errors before they escalate.
This philosophy is woven into every part of a flight. From checklists to flight management systems to a symphony of checks and balances, each part of the system is designed to catch mistakes.
So what can we learn?
It’s simple: we’re not perfect.
It’s time to move beyond a culture of blame and step into a culture of learning and resilience. When an incident does occur, the focus shouldn’t be on punishing the individual who made the mistake, but on understanding the systemic weaknesses that allowed the error to happen. And putting controls in place to ensure that the next time someone makes that mistake, they will still be off home to their family at the end of the day.
The aviation industry's success with "designing for error" offers a powerful playbook for any sector to succeed in safety. It’s a call to move past the impossible ideal of human perfection and to build systems that acknowledge our fallibility. By expecting mistakes, we can prepare for them, ensuring that a simple human error doesn’t have to result in a devastating outcome.
This short and snappy read is part of our Safety Snacks© series, made for busy safety pros who like their insights one bite at a time.
