Building Your Defenses Against Murphy’s Law

Gerald W Whites, The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA
Darren G McDonald, The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA, USA

Abstract

We may accept Murphy’s Laws as fact, based on a long history of observing events. Are we all destined to become victims of Murphy’s Law? In 2003, a seemingly innocuous trim with asymmetric thrust turned into a flight test incident. It was a classic case of Murphy’s Law – or was it? An inspection of the incident reveals that there were several items that transpired to link together in a manner that resulted in an unintended result. Several lessons regarding how to cut each of these links can be universally applied to any flight test, providing an immuniza-tion against Murphy’s Law. In addition, lessons learned are not truly learned until they have been applied, and captured by process changes such that they are not lost.