The Power of a Checklist

On October 30, 1935, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition to evaluate two of the largest airplane manufacturers at the time: Boeing and Martin and Douglas. The U.S. Army Air Corps wanted to procure sixty-five new generation long-range bombers, and these manufacturers each had a model in submission.

This exercise was seen as a formality since the Boeing Model 299 was assumed to be superior. It could carry five times the bomb load required by the army, fly twice as far as any other aircraft, at twice the speed. By all indicators, Boeing was the obvious choice. The plane took off smoothly and climbed sharply to three hundred feet. Then it stalled, turned on one wing, and crashed in an explosion. Two of the five crew members died, including the pilot, Major Ployer Hill.

An investigation revealed that nothing mechanical had gone wrong; the crash was a result of “pilot error.” The plane was very complex, and the pilot had to adjust many things. The pilot had forgotten to release the emergency brakes, which led to the crash.

As expected, the U.S. Army Air Corps awarded the contract to Martin and Douglas and bought sixty-five airplanes. However, the U.S. Army Air Corps also decided to procure four of the Boeing Model 299 because some internal stakeholders still believed it was possible to fly this airplane. They assembled a group of pilots to brainstorm. They quickly concluded that more training was not the answer because if Major Ployer Hill, who was the chief of the Air Corps Training Academy, could not fly this plane with all his experience and expertise, no amount of training would solve the problem.

They decided to create a checklist. They listed each step required for take-off, landing, flight, and taxi. The checklist included everything the pilot needed to check, such as ensuring the brakes were released, the doors were shut, the windows were locked, and each instrument was turned on one by one. With these checklists in hand, the pilots went on to fly the Model 299 for more than 1.8 million miles without a single accident.

In the context of cybersecurity, where teams have several tasks and responsibilities, a checklist can be helpful to ensure important tasks are completed. This story is a powerful reminder that not all problems require complex solutions. Sometimes, something as basic as a checklist can solve a seemingly complex problem.