Problems with saying NO

That Montana plane crash last weekend still haunts me. The thing that sticks out is the problem with saying NO. The prominent dentist that owned the plane wanted to give his relatives a nice skiing weekend. So he got his 65 year old pilot to plan the trip and make several flying stops to pick everybody up. After: takeoff and land, takeoff and land, and takeoff, he was probably heavily fatigued, and made several bad judgement calls, because he was afraid to tell his passengers and his boss that he was tired, and couldn't get that many people into the plane safely. My hunch as to why he decided to change the flight plan, may be that: he was having physical problems, and couldn't bring himself tell anyone about it, or declare an emergency!

Several years ago, the Chairman, President, and a few Vice-Presidents of In-And-Out Burger were making a multistop tour of Orange County, California in a small executive jet aircraft, scouting for new store locations. After many short stops at regional airports in the area, they setup to land at John Wayne Airport. They were following a Boeing 757 on landing approach, slipped down into its wake turbulence and crashed, wiping out the top management of that company. Why was a car not good enough to get them to their scouting locations? Was the pilot afraid to say "no, this is a bad plan", or " hey, I'm getting fatigued, we better stop, and take a car home".

Not to leave myself out of this, I have a problem with this also. This past weekend, I got talked into driving my family up to northern Florida for my wife's high school reunion. I really didn't want to do it, but I didn't want her driving up there alone. So....I put on my "NO Armor", and reminded myself to: constantly check myself and when I got tired, that I needed to ask for help, and not to try to be the hero.