Only Human – News, Analysis, and Insights from the World of Human Performance

In this week’s episode of the podcast, Tony reflects on this weekend’s B-2 bomber mission that saw multiple stealth aircraft launch from a Missouri Air Force base, fly over to Iran to drop bombs, and then safely return to the same base. A mission of this length—likely 35–40 hours from pre-flight to post-flight duties—puts a heavy burden on the air crew executing the mission, with the perils of fatigue, risk management, and moment-to-moment decision making in a combat zone all requiring significant planning to handle. Tony performs a preliminary dissection on the considerations that go into planning missions like this, using his own experience on the B-1 and his dissertation on long-range missions as the starting point. Tony’s conclusion is that no matter how complex the operation is, the goal of the plan should be to make execution by the crew as simple as possible—and this is a philosophy that applies to all human performance, not just high-stakes military missions. So, achieve simplicity in your own performance by front-loading the complexity into the planning phase.

While crashing airplanes have been in the news a lot lately, there’s another major problem currently plaguing aviation: the precipitous increase in ground damage incidents, along with their associated costs. Ground damage events occur when the aircraft is not flying, during taxi, aircraft repositioning, loading/unloading, fueling, and maintenance tasks. Our news story and resulting discussion come from the article, “From the Hangar to the Tarmac: Rising Trends in Ground Incidents,” published in the 2025 issue of Jetstream from the insurer Global Aerospace. Special Guest Jermaine Cadogan is the Lead Instructor for a revolutionary training program called the “Aviation Maintenance Never Events,” which was developed by Convergent Performance to provide maintainers and other support personnel effective methods to prevent ground damage events like those described in the article. Tony and “Caddy” discuss the root causes behind this rise in ground damage, the ways rising costs will impact the industry and passengers, how the industry and regulators might try to tackle this critical issue, and why the “Never Events” program is the solution, garnering support from aviation professionals in both the public and private sectors in the decade since its inception.

Eighty years of aviation experience between them, Tony and special guest Dr. Petitt discuss the real challenges in aviation safety today, how we got here, and where we can go to improve. Dr. Karlene Petitt, an international airline pilot, author, pilot advocate, and aviation safety subject matter expert (visit her website here), discusses the current state of aviation and why passionate instructors are critical to hand down foundational knowledge. Tune in to hear why pilots are getting half the training hours they used to, problems from overreliance on automation, and more about some aviation safety issues that have recently gotten more public attention but are definitely not new.

This week’s conversation on professionalism begins with the news that retired four-star Navy Admiral Robert Burke was found guilty in a bribery scheme involving directing a government contract to a private company in exchange for a job after his military retirement. He is the most senior US military officer found guilty of a federal crime while serving on active duty. But while this conviction is unique, lapses in professionalism happen at all levels in every organization, aren’t always punished, and often aren’t even caught. Tony’s three decades of research into human behavior and his interest in history shaped his unique insights into the evolution of craftsmanship into professionalism and the descending trajectory of the latter in our modern world. Join us for the historical origins of professionalism, his assessment of its current state, and his recommendations for improving the situation, regardless of your rank, sector, or industry.

In this week’s episode, Tony follows up on last week’s conversation with Sara Hammel by delving deeper into one of the topics they touched on: the dangerous rogue operators. The clinical term for this type of person is maladaptive sociopath, and Tony’s research into one example—the pilot Bud Holland, who crashed a B-52 during a Fairchild Air Force Base airshow in 1994—uncovered some common characteristics of these rogues that he described in the book, Darker Shades of Blue. While these traits often become obvious after an accident investigation, they are also tendencies all of us can struggle with from time to time. Join us for this examination of the 12 things we must look out for to recognize and avoid trouble with those who believe themselves to be “minor gods.”

A majority of those working in aviation are ethical professionals, but it’s also an industry that developed in the “Mad Men” era of predatory male-dominated power imbalances. Many of the resulting challenges and hierarchies remain to this day—and are sometimes still exploited. Award-winning investigative journalist and bestselling author Sara Hammel (follow her on Substack) joins us on the podcast to expose this dark side of the aviation industry, people who lead double lives, and the kinds of improvements that must be made. While preventing sexual harassment, assault, and retaliation is a critical goal itself, this issue also has major implications on safety and “just culture” within the industry.

The struggle with complacency is an ancient one rooted in human biology and our desire to find and follow the path of least resistance, likely developed as a means to conserve energy between meals. But just because there is an innate biological basis for complacency does not mean we must be slaves to it, nor to the “baddies” who manipulate and encourage complacency for their own reasons. Whether it be saving time or resources by not performing adequate safety checks on a factory floor or pushing convenient cures and fast fixes, there are many sources of complacency in our modern world that we all fall victim to at times. Fortunately, the antidote is just as accessible, and it starts with asking questions and sometimes choosing to do things the old fashioned, less convenient way—cook a steak instead of a TV dinner, read a real book instead of scrolling on the phone, or have a face-to-face conversation with someone.

We are confronted on an almost daily basis with a new report about so-called leaders who are removed from their positions for poor performance, scandalous behavior, or the ubiquitous “loss of confidence.” These stories occur so often it makes us wonder if the label “good leader” is an oxymoron, if the art of leadership is dead and gone, and perhaps most importantly, what the future looks like if this is the case. Today’s podcast guest is Tom Casey, a leadership expert, advisor, and author whose latest book on the topic is called “Leadership’s Future—Confronting Not Condoning!” Tom and Tony discuss the traits that expose poor leaders, the qualities that elevate good ones—many of which are unfortunately lacking in today’s corporate, military, and political leadership—and finally, share their expertise on shaping future leaders to be curious, empathetic, and accountable.

In this week’s episode, Tony and his guest—Max Trescott, host of the Aviation News Talk podcast—discuss prioritizing safety and the tensions between safety and production as seen in the fallout from a fatal Hudson River crash of a New York Helicopter tour on April 10. Following the accident, the Director of Operations prioritized safety by suspending flights, but was immediately fired by the CEO who resumed operations, but the FAA then mandated they stop again. The two also review the situational awareness and security response of elephants at the San Diego Zoo during last week’s earthquake, before moving on to discuss the importance of safety amidst the ongoing generational handoff occurring in aviation (and many other industries), and how best to make people care enough to prioritize that often unglamorous but always critical topic. 

In this week’s episode of Only Human, Dr. Kern covers a couple of stories involving basic OSHA required safety precautions that were ignored in three incidents. The first involves a worker who fatally fell from a scaffold in Madison, WI, the second a hazardous chemical spill at a plant in Toledo, OH, and the last a grain elevator explosion in Nebraska. He also covers worker issues involving companies disguising the efforts of exploited call center workers in the Philippines as “AI” and arguments on both sides of the issue of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a potential solution to raise people above the “basic survival” level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to improve personal performance, self-actualization, and better contribute to society. Finally, he muses on the necessity of modern “technology detox” retreats versus building better daily habits which include breaks from technology to improve our focus and mental health.