poor choice. In the case of Captain Everyman, after a gear- up landing accident, he became involved in another accident  while taxiing a Beech 58P Baron out of the ramp. Interrupted  by a radio call from the dispatcher, Everyman neglected  to complete the fuel cross-feed check before taking off.  Everyman, who was flying solo, left the right fuel selector in  the cross-feed position. Once aloft and cruising, he noticed  a right roll tendency and corrected with aileron trim. He did  not realize that both engines were feeding off the left wing’s  tank, making the wing lighter.  [Figure 2-3] After two hours of flight, the right engine quit when  Everyman was flying along a deep canyon gorge. While he  was trying to troubleshoot the cause of the right engine’s  failure, the left engine quit. Everyman landed the aircraft on  a river sand bar, but it sank into ten feet of water. Several years later, Everyman was landing a de Havilland  Twin Otter when the aircraft veered sharply to the left,  departed the runway, and ran into a marsh 375 feet from the  runway. The airframe and engines sustained considerable  damage. Upon inspecting the wreck, accident investigators  found the nosewheel steering tiller in the fully deflected  position. Both the after-takeoff and before-landing checklists  required the tiller to be placed in the neutral position.  Everyman had overlooked this item.  Now, is Everyman accident prone or just unlucky? Skipping  details on a checklist appears to be a common theme in the  preceding accidents. While most pilots have made similar  mistakes, these errors were probably caught prior to a mishap  due to extra margin, good warning systems, a sharp copilot, or  just good luck. In an attempt to discover what makes a pilot  Fifty-five years after Fuller-Baune study, Dr. Patrick R.  Veillette debated the possibility of an accident prone pilot  in his 2006 article “Accident-Prone Pilots,” published in  Business and Commercial Aviation. Veillette uses the history  of “Captain Everyman” to demonstrate how aircraft accidents  are caused more by a chain of poor choices than one single  rebellious behavior when under stress, were poor losers,  and liked to be the center of attention.  [Figure 2-2]  One  interpretation of this data—an adult predisposition to injury  stems from childhood behavior and environment—leads  to the conclusion that any pilot group should be comprised  only of pilots who are safety conscious, industrious, and  cooperative. Clearly, this is not only an inaccurate inference,  but is impossible to achieve since pilots are drawn from the  general population and exhibit all types of personality traits.  Figure 2-2.  According to human behavior studies, there is a direct  correlation between disdain for rules and aircraft accidents.  Figure 2-3.  The pilot inadvertently fed both engines from the left fuel tank and failed to determine the problem for the right wing low.  His lack of discipline resulted in an accident.  Left Fuel Tank Right Fuel Tank C r o s sf e d M AI N O FF  A U X C r o s sf e d M AI N O FF  A U X Disdain of Rule s Violations Accidents Disdain of Rules 2-3