Severity of an Event  Risk  Flight Risk Assessment Tools  Why Should I Use a FRAT?  1-10  Just thinking about this task may not consider the actual risk exposure. We may allow our personal desires to manipulate our risk  assessment in order to meet personal goals. A formal process using pen and paper gives a perspective on the entire risk picture and is  a good way to make a thorough analysis.  “In the thick” is no time to try to mitigate a potentially hazardous outcome. When preparing for a flight or maintenance task, pilots  and maintenance technicians may set aside time to stop and think about the hazards involved.  Because every flight has some level of risk, it is critical that pilots can differentiate, in advance, between a low risk flight and a high- risk flight, establish a review process, and develop risk mitigation strategies. A Flight Risk Analysis Tool (FRAT) enables proactive  hazard identification, is easy to use, and can visually depict risk. It is a tool many pilots use to make better go/no-go decisions.  After all mitigating steps have been completed, you may confront the possibility that a flight cannot be made or continued for a  variety of reasons not only for yourself but also for your passengers. Remember that many pilots have ignored or failed to mitigate  serious and high-risk hazards, and a tragic fatal accident is all too often the result.  Risk mitigation often begins days, sometimes weeks, before a planned flight. For example, a pilot flying a single-engine piston  aircraft without ice protection lives in the Pacific Northwest and is planning a trip in January for a scheduled speech. While keeping  the long-range weather forecast in mind, planning in advance gives the pilot several options to mitigate risk:  There are almost an infinite number of actions you can take, depending on the nature of the hazard or risk. For example, the pilot  flying from point A to point B (50 miles) in MVFR conditions has several ways to reduce risk:  The final step in risk management is mitigation, which is the payoff for accomplishing the entire risk management process and will  often allow for mission accomplishment (the reason most pilots fly). By effectively mitigating known risks to acceptable levels, pilots  can complete their planned flights safely or ensure that alternate options are selected for those rare occasions when the planned or  ongoing flight cannot be completed.  Assessing risk may be the most difficult part of risk management and applying the terms described above to specific risks takes some  practice. Once you have assessed risk likelihood and severity for all identified risks, you can readily classify the overall risk level for  that hazard. For example, simply connecting the two factors as shown in  Figure 1-4  indicates the risk is high and the pilot may  consider whether to not fly or fly only after finding ways to mitigate, eliminate, or control the risk.  The next element is the severity or consequence of a pilot’s action(s). It can relate to injury and/or damage. If the individual in the  example above is not an instrument flight rules (IFR) pilot, what are the consequences of encountering inadvertent IMC? In this case,  because the pilot is not IFR rated, the consequences could be fatal. The following are guidelines for this assignment.  ⦁ $_{Catastrophic—results in fatalities, total loss }$ ⦁ $_{Critical—severe injury, major damage }$ ⦁ $_{Marginal—minor injury, minor damage }$ ⦁ $_{Negligible—less than minor injury, less than minor system damage }$ ⦁ $_{Drive. }$ ⦁ $_{Wait for the weather to improve to good visual flight rules (VFR) conditions. }$ ⦁ $_{Take a pilot who is rated as an IFR pilot. }$ ⦁ $_{Delay the flight. }$ ⦁ $_{Cancel the flight. }$ ⦁ $_{Book commercial flight/transfer the risk to the airlines. }$ ⦁ $_{Change the date of the event to accommodate weather. }$ ⦁ $_{Cancel flight altogether. }$ ⦁ $_{Depart a day early from the Pacific Northwest to avoid an incoming low-pressure area that will bring low }$ IFR and certain icing conditions. 