Managing risks is a duty pilots accept routinely, but the accident record suggests one aspect of flight planning is routinely ignored – the destination airport.

Selecting the destination airport is usually a matter of convenience. It’s close to the meeting, near the friend’s house or has cheap fuel for the next leg of the trip. Take a cursory glance at runway length, record the applicable frequencies and off you go.

All too often, however, the destination is just a stop on the way to misery. Unexpectedly narrow runways create visual illusions. A pilot caught trying to decide between landing with a tailwind or a downslope makes the wrong choice. Airport construction,…