What is Crew Resource Management (CRM) and how does it apply to remote pilots?

Crew Resource Management is a set of principles originally developed for crewed aviation that focuses on effective communication, workload management, decision-making, and situational awareness to reduce human error. For remote pilots, the FAA extends these principles to small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) operations, recognizing that even solo or small-team operations benefit from structured communication and coordination strategies. The FAA's Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge emphasizes that human factors, including fatigue, distraction, and poor decision-making, are leading contributors to aviation accidents, making CRM skills essential for all operators.

How do you manage workload effectively as a remote pilot during sUAS operations?

Effective workload management involves prioritizing tasks, delegating responsibilities when a visual observer or crew is present, and avoiding tasks that divert attention from aircraft control and situational awareness. The FAA recommends using checklists, briefings, and pre-mission planning to reduce in-flight cognitive demands and prevent task saturation. Identifying and addressing high-workload phases of flight—such as takeoff, landing, and operations near obstacles or people—before they occur helps remote pilots maintain safe control of the aircraft throughout the operation.

Why is situational awareness important for remote pilots operating sUAS?

Situational awareness is the ability to accurately perceive and understand your environment, including the position and status of the aircraft, airspace conditions, weather changes, and nearby hazards, and then project how those factors will evolve. For remote pilots, maintaining situational awareness is more challenging than traditional aviation because the pilot does not have direct sensory feedback from being aboard the aircraft. The FAA notes that loss of situational awareness is a significant human factors risk in sUAS operations and can lead to airspace violations, collisions, or loss of aircraft control.

Crew Resource Management Principles for Remote Pilots

When most people hear "Crew Resource Management" they picture airline cockpits with captains, first officers, and jump-seat observers. But the Federal Aviation Administration has extended CRM principles squarely into the world of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) — and for good reason. Human error, not mechanical failure, is the leading cause of aviation accidents across virtually every segment of aviation. Remote pilots face the same cognitive traps, communication failures, and decision-making pitfalls that manned-aircraft crews do. Understanding CRM gives you a systematic way to catch those errors before they become incidents.

Under 14 CFR Part 107, many professional sUAS operations involve more than one person. A Remote Pilot in Command (RPIC) may work alongside a visual observer (VO), a second crew member operating payload equipment, or even a team of ground personnel managing a corridor for a complex mission. Even when operating solo, the RPIC still applies internal CRM — managing personal workload, monitoring cognitive biases, and maintaining the discipline to abort a flight when conditions deteriorate. This article breaks down the core CRM principles relevant to Part 107 remote pilots and explains how to apply them in the field.

What Is Crew Resource Management?

CRM is a set of training concepts and operational practices designed to improve safety by making the most effective use of all available resources: people, information, and equipment. It emerged in manned aviation after research showed that most accidents were not caused by a lack of technical flying skill, but by failures in communication, leadership, situational awareness, and decision-making. The FAA's Risk Management Handbook (FAA-H-8083-2) and the Aviation Instructor's Handbook (FAA-H-8083-9) both discuss CRM as a framework for managing the "human factors" side of flight operations.

For remote pilots, the resources available during a mission include the RPIC's own judgment, the eyes and reports of a visual observer, preflight planning data, weather information, battery state, airspace notifications, and communication with ATC if required. CRM means actively using all of those resources — not just the ones you happen to notice in the moment.

Core CRM Principles Applied to sUAS Operations

Situational Awareness

Situational awareness (SA) means knowing where your aircraft is, where it is going, and what the environment around it is doing — all at the same time. The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25) describes SA as the accurate perception of the factors and conditions affecting the aircraft and pilot. For a remote pilot, SA must encompass the aircraft's position and altitude, remaining battery or fuel, nearby manned traffic, bystander locations, wind changes, and the status of your visual observer if one is assigned.

SA degrades quickly when workload spikes. A common scenario: the RPIC becomes fixated on framing a perfect camera shot and stops actively scanning for traffic. This is called channelized attention — locking onto one task while others go unmonitored. A visual observer can serve as a dedicated SA resource, breaking the RPIC's tunnel vision by maintaining eyes on the aircraft and calling out traffic or obstacles.

Communication

Clear, concise, and timely communication is the foundation of any CRM program. On a multi-person sUAS team, every crew member must use a shared, pre-briefed language. Before flight, the RPIC should establish:

Call signs or plain language identifiers for the aircraft and crew positions.
Standard callouts — for example, the VO should be expected to report "traffic, 2 o'clock, low, approaching" in a consistent format so the RPIC knows exactly what to process.
Go/no-go authority — any crew member should feel empowered and expected to call for a mission abort if they observe a safety concern. This must be explicitly stated before flight, not assumed.

One of the most dangerous communication failures in aviation is the culture of deference — where a crew member notices a problem but does not speak up out of professional courtesy or fear. The FAA explicitly addresses this through the concept of assertiveness: crew members must be trained and psychologically safe enough to voice concerns, even to the person in command. The RPIC, in turn, must create that culture.

Workload Management

Every task has a cognitive cost, and humans have a finite mental bandwidth. When multiple high-demand tasks compete simultaneously — repositioning the aircraft, monitoring battery, talking on radio, and watching for traffic — performance on all of them degrades. The FAA Risk Management Handbook describes workload management as the practice of prioritizing tasks, delegating where possible, and avoiding unnecessary actions during high-demand phases of flight.

Practical strategies for remote pilots include:

Delegate actively. Assign the VO to own aircraft visual contact so the RPIC can monitor the controller and flight data.
Use checklists. Pre-launch and pre-landing checklists reduce reliance on memory during busy moments.
Avoid non-essential tasks at critical phases. Camera adjustments and data reviews should happen during stable, low-risk hover phases, not during approach to a confined area or near battery limits.
Set mental minimums in advance. Decide before flight: "At 20% battery, I begin return-to-home regardless of mission status." Pre-committing to these limits prevents in-flight rationalization.

Decision-Making and Hazardous Attitudes

The FAA identifies five hazardous attitudes that corrupt aeronautical decision-making (ADM): Anti-authority ("Don't tell me what to do"), Impulsivity ("Do something quickly without thinking it through"), Invulnerability ("Accidents happen to other people, not me"), Macho ("I can handle this"), and Resignation ("What's the use? I can't make a difference"). Each of these can lead a remote pilot toward poor in-flight choices — pressing on through deteriorating weather, ignoring a battery warning, or flying beyond visual line of sight without a waiver.

The antidotes are equally well-defined. Anti-authority is countered by reminding yourself that rules exist because of real accidents. Impulsivity is countered by stopping to think before acting. Invulnerability is countered by accepting that you are not immune to risk. Macho is countered by asking whether the action is truly wise. Resignation is countered by recognizing that you can and do make a difference in outcomes.

Crew Briefing and Preflight Planning as CRM Tools

A thorough crew briefing before each mission is one of the most underutilized CRM tools in sUAS operations. The briefing should cover the mission objective, flight area and hazards, weather conditions and limits, emergency procedures (lost link, flyaway, medical emergency on the ground), crew roles and communication protocols, and the explicit go/no-go criteria. When everyone on the crew hears the same information at the same time, the team operates from a shared mental model — which is the foundation of effective CRM.

The Role of the Visual Observer in CRM

Part 107 permits the use of a visual observer to assist the RPIC in maintaining situational awareness. The VO is not just an extra set of eyes — the VO is a CRM asset. The RPIC and VO must be able to communicate instantly and effectively, which requires co-location or a reliable communication link. The VO watches for traffic and obstacles, and the RPIC retains final authority and responsibility for all decisions. Critically, the regulations specify that the RPIC may only divide the tasks of seeing-and-avoiding with a VO — the VO does not take command, and the RPIC cannot delegate responsibility.

Why CRM Matters for Remote Pilots

sUAS operations, while generally lower risk than manned aircraft, can still produce serious harm — damage to people and property, mid-air collisions with manned aircraft, and regulatory violations. The consequences of a crash near a crowd, a collision with a helicopter, or a flyaway into restricted airspace are severe enough to warrant the same disciplined human-factors approach that commercial aviation uses. CRM is not bureaucratic overhead; it is a structured way of thinking and communicating that reduces accident probability.

Key Numbers and Rules

Five hazardous attitudes: Anti-authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho, Resignation — each has a defined antidote per FAA guidance.
Under 14 CFR Part 107.31, the RPIC (or person manipulating the controls) must maintain visual line of sight of the aircraft at all times; 14 CFR 107.33 sets the requirements for a visual observer, who supplements but does not replace RPIC situational awareness.
CRM applies to solo operations too — managing your own workload, biases, and decision-making is "single-pilot resource management."
Preflight crew briefings should address at minimum: mission objectives, hazards, emergency procedures, and go/no-go criteria.
The RPIC retains final authority and responsibility at all times, regardless of crew size or VO involvement.

Memory Aid

Use the mnemonic PAVE to check readiness before any flight — it is a standard FAA risk-identification tool applicable to remote pilots:

P — Pilot: Am I physically and mentally ready? Consider IMSAFE (Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Emotion).
A — Aircraft: Is the sUAS airworthy? Batteries charged, props undamaged, firmware current?
V — enVironment: What are the weather conditions, airspace class, obstructions, and bystander density?
E — External pressures: Is a client deadline, social media pressure, or financial incentive pushing me toward an unsafe decision?

Running PAVE before each mission is a built-in CRM checkpoint that catches problems before they become airborne.

Common Test Traps

Confusing VO authority with RPIC authority. The VO assists the RPIC but has no command authority. The RPIC is always the final decision-maker — the exam will test whether you know this.
Thinking CRM only applies to multi-person crews. Solo remote pilots apply single-pilot resource management (SRM) — the same concepts adapted for one person. The FAA tests this understanding.
Misidentifying hazardous attitude antidotes. Know not just the five attitudes but their specific antidotes. The exam may describe a scenario and ask you to identify the hazardous attitude or its correction.
Overlooking communication as a CRM element. Students sometimes focus only on checklists and workload, forgetting that communication protocols — especially assertiveness — are core CRM components.
Treating the preflight briefing as optional. The FAA frames the preflight briefing as a safety-critical CRM practice, not a suggestion. In a scenario question, skipping it is almost always a wrong answer choice.