Confessional

After the weekend layover in Richmond, I've been flying between Norfolk and Indy each night. Last night I made the biggest error of my Captaincy, which really wasn't a big deal, but could have been. I lined up on the wrong runway at Indy. There are two parallel and virtually identical runways there, and we were coming in from a direction that put them on the right side of the airplane. That side is very hard to see from my seat on the left side of the cockpit. Because of the city lights, the airport is hard to see, and I just locked onto the far parallel runway instead of the near one, which was not in view when I looked. The First Officer advised me of my error and I made a correction, thanking him. I was tired, but that's no excuse. You can never get complacent in an airplane or it will bite you. If there had been another airplane cleared for an approach to the far side runway, a midair could have occurred (fortunately, there was not). The thing I did right was to foster a cockpit environment all week which allowed the other pilot to speak right up when he saw my error, and me to admit when I had screwed up. That's why you have two pilots up front ladies and gentlemen; for error capture. The hardest thing after making a mistake like that is to recover your mental attitude and get back in the game. How the other person reacts plays a big role in your recovery, but the bottom line is you can't beat yourself up about it, especially in an airplane b/c you simply don't have the luxury of time. So you learn to let it go and move on. We're all human and we will all make mistakes no matter how good we are at what we do.  OK, that's enough of a confession for one day.