Risk propensity in commercial and military pilots

Flight safety is dependent on the quality of the decision-making process, which is closely related to risk taking. The purpose of this descriptive study was to evaluate risk propensity among commercial and military pilots.

Since commercial and military flights are conducted in different environments with different safety policies, our hypothesis was that risk propensity levels observed in these different settings will not be the same.

We tested 96 French pilots, 63 who were flying commercial aircraft (mean age 43 yr) and 33 serving in military aviation (mean age 33 yr), with the Evaluation of Risk (EVAR) visual analog scale, designed to rate risk proneness, and the Barrat impulsiveness scale. EVAR is composed of 24 items distributed among 5 factors: "self-control," "danger-seeking," "energy," "impulsiveness," and "invincibility."

We observed significantly higher scores in all EVAR factors except "impulsiveness" in military pilots compared with commercial pilots. This different risk profile was corroborated by Barrat scores and was not explained by the significant age difference.

The observed difference in risk propensity cannot be explained by this descriptive study. A prospective evaluation of risk proneness beginning with the selection process and continuing through training and military and commercial flying is necessary to assess how a risk proneness profile is determined.