[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Talus1

As somebody who used to work in aviation safety I can categorically state that flight checklists are written by engineers, not lawyers. They aren't there for liability reasons. They are designed to save lives by making sure that every step is followed and not forgotten. Good pilots use them religiously, even if they know them by heart after a few times. It is super easy to forget a step or forget to check something and you never know when that might become critical. Accidents are rarely the result of a single failure. Typically a bunch of minor things are missed, any one of which, if not missed, would have prevented the accident. The problem is that there is rarely a consequence for a single forgotten step, so as humans we get sloppy. Thats what checklists are for, to make sure that no step is forgotten so that accidents don't happen.

I've flown with a bunch of different professional pilots. There was only one that didn't use the ground and flight checklists religiously. He was also the only one I never really felt comfortable flying with, even if his natural ability to control an aircraft in flight was among the best.

The good pilots I know use the checklists with the same discipline and diligence that they apply to all their other flying skills. They try to do everything better on this flight than the last one and spend time thinking about how to do the next one better.

For sure there are legal implications, as there are for anything else where humans are involved...

The comment was ironic. The real meaning of irony not the new one. Most people now call it sarcasim.
I fully appreciate the importance of checklists and use them every day on equipment safety reviews even though I have been doing those reviews for 30 years and even write half of them.