Human Factors Affecting Aviation Accidents

Tool control affects safety. Leaving a tool in an aircraft, engine or a piece of support equipment is not just an inconvenience, it is a safety risk. Realizing this, in our aircraft maintenance department superiors enforce some sort of tool control procedures. They realize that establishing and enforcing a tool control program can provide numerous benefits, the foremost of which is safety. The effect of Foreign Object Debris (FOD) on maintenance costs can be significant. For example, the cost to repair a FOD-damaged engine can easily exceed $1 million. FOD can also incur extensive indirect costs, including: Flight delays and cancellations, Schedule disruptions caused by the need to reposition airplanes and crews work for flight management

Nicholas Carr, the author of “All Can be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Heads of Machines”, expresses the major concerns towards technology. In this story many crashes and devastating accidents are presented. These accidents could have easily been avoided through the proper knowledge of the air staff members. As a result of technology, pilots are trained less expensively and therefore are unable to react in urgent situations. For example, they now rely on auto-pilot to do more of the directing than they rely on themselves for. This idea is expressed throughout many other stories, demonstrating the lack of knowledge due to the increasing use of technology. One main point that Carr makes is that individuals are constantly starting

There are many aircraft accident factors in which investigators need to pursue in order to come to a good conclusion on what the cause or causes of an aircraft accident were. A portion of what the investigator looks into is the human factors surrounding the accident. This highly diverse and expansive area needs to be systematically looked into to figure out if any human factors were causation of an aircraft accident. One model that investigators utilize in order to sift through the human factors that may be attributable to an accident is the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) Model. This Model breaks down human factors into four different sections, organizational influences, unsafe supervision, preconditions for unsafe acts, and unsafe acts of operators. Throughout this case study, the accident of American Airlines flight 1420 will be dissected utilizing the HFACS Model to uncover human factors issues with the aircraft operator organization, aircraft flight crew, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

As a collaborative case study, we analyzed the American Airlines Flight 1420 accident using the SHELL Model. The SHEL Model was developed by a Professor Elwyn Edwards in 1972 and it was later modified to the SHELL Model by a human factors consultant named Frank Hawkins. We can see all the human factors that were involved in the accident utilizing following aspects software, hardware, environment, liveware and liveware. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted a thorough investigation and determine that the American Airlines Flight 1420 was a runway overrun accident caused by human factors.

|Flight 5390 was a British Airways flight between Birmingham International Airport in England and Málaga, Spain. On June 10, 1990 there |

This paper will review the July 10, 2007 aviation accident involving a Cessna 310R, N501N, operated by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing corporate aviation division as a personal flight. The aircraft crashed while attempting an emergency in to Orlando Sanford International Airport, Sanford, Florida after experiencing an in-flight fire. The flight had been released for flight despite it having a known unrepaired maintenance discrepancy. Safety issues discussed in this paper relate to the resetting of circuit breakers, the inspection and maintenance of electrical systems in general aviation aircraft, and the establishment of safety management systems in general aviation corporate aviation operations. Safety

Unsafe acts, attitudes and errors are addressed in this project by assessing the activities of the people involved in operating aircraft, airports, and other facilities. The operations of such individuals are likely to affect the outcomes differently for travelers and airlines. Varied attitudes towards issues like security and errors occurring in some processes may result in significant challenges to the enhancement of safety. These practices will be assessed in the research with a focus on how improvements

To fly was a tremendous triumph for mankind, who was previously sentenced to a life only walking the earth. Since the inception of the airplane, there has been aircraft maintenance. However, this industry has changed dramatically throughout the years and now involves highly innovative technologies and incredibly skilled technicians in order to best maintain the incredibly complex aircraft that fly in today's skies. Maintaining an aircraft is a harmonious blend between simple and intensely complicated procedures. Many procedures even still used to day are relatively simple and have existed for generations, including the basic engine work, refueling and other servicing procedures, and other after-market manufacturing that might take place on particular planes. This is now combined with impressive and innovative technologies that are highly regulated under a wide number of international agencies.

Human error theory explores human factors and ergonomics, which contribute to the implementation and design of health and safety measures in healthcare. The theory identifies the effect of medical errors by healthcare providers cause significant risks to the health and safety of patients. It explains human errors in terms of contributory factors that prevail in a person's performance, immediate environment, and the broader organizational level. Human errors that influence performance are identified in broader categories of lapses, mistakes, or slips. To mitigate this, the research identifies the establishment of safety and health standards in organizational culture and structure to change individual behavior and organizational behavior.

The unsafe acts of all pilots can be directly linked to nearly 80% of all aviation accidents (Shappell, 2000). The military uses a modernized model Reason’s

Aircraft maintenance is very important for aviation industry and Aircraft are required to be maintained after a period of calendar time or flight hours or flight cycles. Aircraft maintenance is the inspection, repair, overhaul, modification of aircraft or aircraft component. Aircraft maintenance generally includes such tasks those tasks required to restore or maintain an aircraft’s systems, components, and structures with Airworthiness Directives or Service Bulletins and this is highly regulated, in order to ensure safe and correct functioning during flight. Aircraft maintenance requirements vary for different size and types of aircraft, experience which most aircraft need various type of preventive maintenance every 25 hours or less of flying time, and minor maintenance at least every 100 hours. Maintenance is influenced by some kind of operation, climatic conditions, storage facilities, age, and construction of the airplane. The profession of Aircraft maintenance requires extreme knowledge and adept expertise in performing the ingrained tasks. The aircraft maintenance engineer who is on duty he has a great responsibility to work professionally to ensure the safety of aircraft, customers and maintain the reputation of the team or company. The aircraft maintenance engineer normally works in an aircraft hangar and line maintenance and The aircraft maintenance engineer will undertake a number of processes including They may specialize by working on particular aeronautical

The science of human factors in aviation has a come along way since the days of the Wright brothers in 1913 but it did not actually start with them. According to Dr. Bill Johnson, Chief Scientist at the Federal Aviation Administration, human factors “dates back to the 1600s when Leonardo da Vinci drew the Vitruvian Man, with all the anthropometric measures, [when] he was trying to decide if a human was strong enough to propel an aircraft” (FAA, 2012). Long after the work of da Vinci, human factors has brought advancements to aircraft design while creating a greater understanding of the human role in mishaps.

According to the incident investigation report, one of the chain event that contributed to the B-OBMM incident was unapproved procedures to carried out

As a ramification, it is difficult for human operators to anticipate faults within the system and prevent and manage the risks incurred by an operational accident accordingly, making them “incomprehensible”. Therefore, organisational accidents in complex systems are inevitable as despite defensive measures implemented to mitigate their risk, such as the training of operators and regular maintenance, the fragile design of the systems is the core reason why accidents occur.

According to Rodrigues and Cusick (2012) humans are accountable for approximately 70-80% of aviation accidents (p.156). A majority of these are caused by the different variables associated with human performance. Psychological factors have a key role in a pilot’s everyday responsibility. Some of these traits include: perception, memory, attitude, judgment and decision making, as well as ego (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012, p. 158-160). These qualities can have drastic effects in commercial aviation if they are not recognized and adjusted accordingly. In this paper I will respond to some questions that are raised in aviation safety: