Definition
A hazardous pilot behavior in which required preflight preparation — such as reviewing weather, fuel requirements, route, weight and balance, NOTAMs, and aircraft performance — is skipped, rushed, or done superficially before a flight.
Plain English
Failing to properly prepare for a flight before getting in the aircraft. The pilot either skips important checks and planning steps or does them so quickly that key information is missed.
Context Anchor
Seen in aeronautical decision-making discussions, especially lists of common pilot judgment traps and unsafe habits.
Derivation
Neglect comes from a Latin idea meaning to disregard or fail to attend to something. That helps here because the problem is not just having a bad plan; it is failing to give the planning the attention the flight requires.
Why Pilots Care
It directly increases the chance of encountering unexpected conditions without adequate preparation or reserves, contributing to preventable accidents.
Grounding Statement
A flight plan is not just paperwork; it is the pilot’s prepared way of staying ahead of the airplane and the situation.
Intuition Check
Do not assume neglect of flight planning only means forgetting to make a formal flight plan. In this FAA context, it also means weak or incomplete preparation, or failing to adjust the plan when the flight no longer matches what was expected.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor identified neglect of flight planning as the root cause when the student departed without checking that the destination airport was closed for runway work.
Example Sentence 2
Neglect of flight planning often appears when a pilot skips fuel calculations and has to make an unplanned diversion.