Definition
A set of five recognized mental patterns identified by the FAA as common contributors to poor pilot decision-making and accidents. The five attitudes are: anti-authority ("don't tell me"), impulsivity ("do something quickly"), invulnerability ("it won't happen to me"), macho ("I can do it"), and resignation ("what's the use"). Each attitude has a corresponding antidote — a short corrective thought a pilot is trained to use the moment they notice the attitude in themselves.
Plain English
Five common mental traps that lead pilots to make bad decisions in the cockpit. Each one has a short mental phrase a pilot can say to themselves to snap out of it.
Context Anchor
Seen in aviation decision-making training, especially when learning how pilots recognize and correct unsafe thoughts before they become unsafe actions.
Derivation
Hazardous comes from an older word for chance or risk. Attitude can mean a mental position or way of approaching something. In this term, it means a risky mental approach to a flying situation, not the position of the airplane.
Why Pilots Care
Recognizing these attitudes allows a pilot to counteract them before they lead to an accident or incident.
Grounding Statement
In a real flight, a hazardous attitude is the thought pattern that appears just before a pilot chooses the unsafe option.
Intuition Check
Do not read attitude here as aircraft attitude, meaning nose position or bank. Here, attitude means the pilot’s mental approach to the situation.
Example Sentence 1
During the human factors lesson, the instructor walked through each of the Five Hazardous Attitudes and the antidote for each one.
Example Sentence 2
After identifying his impulsivity as one of the five hazardous attitudes, the pilot began pausing before acting on a change in the flight plan.