The moment T

On an analysis chart, nothing is drawn between objects: no arrows, no paths. The link is carried by the cursor, a vertical line spanning the full height of the chart. It is read in two ways: stopped, then moved.

Stopped, it gives the configuration

Wherever it stops, the cursor gathers everything active at that moment, in stratum order. Read its vertical line from the bottom up:

1. this is the information that was available;
2. this is where the aircraft was;
3. this is the condition the crew was in;
4. this is what they were doing.

An example. The cursor sits on a decision. Its line shows: the shortened approach path is still in progress; the aircraft is above the profile, and the outline has turned solid, so the deviation has been seen; the original plan is still being held; and that is the configuration in which the decision is made.

The cursor replaces a chronology with a snapshot of the situation. What is weighing on the crew, what they are dealing with, where the aircraft is, what is still open: all of it in one place.

Simultaneity

This is the cursor’s first contribution. A report covers the weather in one chapter and workload in another. Under the cursor, everything that coexists shows up together.

“The checklist was omitted” becomes “at that moment, three tasks were running”. The deviation goes back to what it often is: an allocation of resources under time pressure.

One limit must stay clear. Coexisting under the cursor proves no link. It shows that objects were there together, and in that order. If the analysis claims a specific link between two objects, that link goes in the record, with its source and its status.

Moved along, it shows information travelling up

Move the cursor a few seconds forward. It passes from one object to the next. Each move is a step: the threat travels up to processing, processing comes down to a control input, the input leaves its mark on the aircraft, and the new state sets off as new information.

Put end to end, the steps form a staircase. It climbs and drops between strata, and always moves to the right, because time does not run backwards.

Each horizontal tread has a length, and that length is information: it is the time it took for something to travel up, or for a response to arrive. A long tread at the bottom of the chart, and a staircase slow to climb: that is available information nobody picked up. The available signal demo gives an example, and the loop demo shows the full staircase.

To say that a step took place, the analysis checks three moments in the source material:

Moment	What is checked
Available	The information exists and can reach the flight deck.
Received	A trace of awareness appears: a callout, a corrective action, a finding in the report.
Processed	An observable action follows.

When one is missing, the case says so: that is often where it is decided. A storm available for twenty minutes, whose first trace of awareness is a request to divert, carries a twenty-minute delay. That delay is what the reading turns on.

On a teaching chart, a step can be shown: the same cursor line, simply thickened between the two objects. Nothing else is added.

Discovery reading, analysis reading

The same case can be read in two ways.

• The analysis reading shows everything the analysis retained, including what the crew did not know.
• The discovery reading shows only what the crew had at the cursor’s moment. What they did not know yet stays hidden.

Both readings use the same coding. Nothing is removed: the discovery reading hides, it does not delete.

Limiting hindsight bias

Knowing the outcome changes how we judge what came before it. In hindsight, everything looks more predictable than it was at the time. The effect is robust, and knowing about it does not make it go away (Fischhoff, 1975; Guilbault et al., 2004).

The discovery reading puts the reader back in the crew’s situation. It is available in every demo, for example the TRI training scenario. For someone new to the case, it recreates the conditions before the bias kicks in. For someone who already knows the outcome, it limits the bias without removing it.

It is the default reading for teaching charts and debriefs. The question is no longer “why didn’t they see it?”, but “what did they have in front of them at that moment?”.

One idea at a time

A teaching chart can also open just one stratum, one window or one reading. The rest is dimmed, not removed. The instructor shows the topic at the moment it comes into play, then widens the view.

Read aloud: “what is going on at this moment?”