Analysis of Organisational Human Factors and Safety in the News - Coursework Example

Human Factors in Transportation Human factor is a cognitive property involving individuals or specifically human’s social behavior that is influential to how systems of technology function. It is the study of human relationship to the surrounding environment so as to upscale performance in operations and safety (Stanton, N. 2005). Team work, communication and behavior in abnormal and normal situations In aviation, safety incidents and accidents are common due to flight crew errors, airplane, weather, air traffic control and maintenance among others. The most recent aviation accident occurred in April 10, 2010 where Tupolev TU-154 Polish Aircraft crushed just as it was about to land in Smolensk airport in Russia (Reuters, 2010). The polish president and his wife among other 132 people aboard the plane who included top Government officials perished when it plunged into a forest almost 2 kilometers from Smolensk. The suspected reason for the crash was the error of the pilot who took the risk and ignored calls for him not to land in the heavy fog but instead fly to Moscow. Human errors can be intrinsic or extrinsic and they involve decision making, demographics, distraction, drugs and alcohol, experience and training, familiarity with environment, fatigue, inattention, emergency response, risk taking behaviors, panic and stress and they affect a person’s behavior. This particular accident was caused by some of the most common top 5 operational related accidents which are significant events, collision, aircraft control, ground operations and fuel related. Significant events and aircraft control are mainly attributed to this accident. In systems approach, accidents are not only events but processes with a chain of conditions and events and the severity can be minimized through interaction with people, hardware procedures, organization and environment. In this case, the error happened as a result of the pilot’s behavior which increased the risky situation due to intended acts that led to the unintended outcome. By applying cognitive mechanism, the error could have occurred due to slips where the planned actions were executed in the wrong way, Lapses where the planned actions failed to be executed as a result of attention or memory failure or mistakes which happened as a result of failing to judge or plan properly. The available information, social and political impacts influences the probability of a condition or an event changing (Orlady, H.W.  Orlady, L.M. 1999). Human error through observed behavior can be through omission whereby one fails to do something that should have been done, or commission where something that ought not to be done is done. The pilot committed the error by trying to land where he should not have as advised prior basing on the available information on weather and the dangers of landing under such a dense fog. Social influence, group decision making and culture Another plane crush occurred in March 22, 2010 at Darwin in Australia. It was an Embraer 120 ER, Brasilia type operated by Airworthy where 2 people were aboard and all died, (The Australian). The accident occurred while in a training session and the problem was technical though it could also have been due to human error because the pilots are said to have attempted to do an engine failure a few minutes before the take off. This accident could also be attributed to safety culture which influences the outcomes of behaviors, (CASA 2009). When the management is absent, the culture will determine what actions the employees are taking. Error is unintentional but violations are intentional and are determined by safety culture and group norms. Social influence also applies here and it requires application of the principle of 7 Cs in safety management and they include: caring, through listening and showing concern to the employees when they are in need; coaching through repletion and demonstration so as to improve team skills; correcting to avoid repetition of undesired or risky behavior. Confirming whereby workers are praised for safely working; collaborating where people combine efforts to improve safety; clarifying which involve regular and clear communication of goals so as to hammer them in the minds of employees; conciliating so as to avoid working under strained relationships with fellow team members (David, S. 2000) The likely hood of being unruly or being compliant on the part of employees is highly influenced by values of the organization and risk tolerance. There are reasons why people don’t follow rules and they are divided into motivators which are motives for taking certain actions and modifiers which are the conditions that increase the risky behaviors. This accident could have been particularly caused by these two pilots whose behavior was characterized by poor risk perception, reduced detection and loss of accountability working in an organization with inefficient management and supervisory styles and a poor safety culture. As reported, before take off, the pilots performed an engine failure, a task that might not have been supervised, and so failed to detect the problem or perceive the risk. Human beings make mistakes that can cause fatal accidents but such errors should not be entirely blamed on individuals but also on the systems in place. All systems should embrace a just culture where all people are motivated to strive to do safety practices and to source for information on safety issues and this includes protecting those involved in honest mistakes. Such a culture can assist the management in detection of hazards and risks in organizations (David S. 2000). Safety risk management and organizational model In March 1, 2010, another accident occurred in Mwanza, Tanzania. It was operated by Air Tanzania and the type of the craft was Boeing B-737-247. 46 people were aboard and all escaped without being hurt (BBC News). This happened when the plane was trying to land and it swerved away from the run away and stopped after skidding for almost a kilometer and during this time the front landing gear had collapsed (Simon, H. 2010). This accident was caused by technical events that led to collapse of the front landing gear leading to failure of the aircraft to land in the expected way. The individual actions here were positive and that’s why the crew was able to respond very well to instructions hence effectively managing the risk. The local conditions were also favorable in that during the 1 kilometer skidding, there was no danger of hitting other things. There were risk controls that facilitated and ensured safety of the personnel and the plane. The organizational influences were also positive in that they were able to maintain effective risk controls of the organization. Group cohesiveness here seems to have been very well demonstrated among the team members because they attained the safety objective. Also, there was a demonstrated compliance to the rules and regulations of safety control and conformity as the accuracy of judgment was very high and that’s even after the lengthy skidding all were safe including the air craft. There was no social loafing, a situation that shows reduced efforts to achieve goals which mainly occurs in emergency and non emergency situations though it’s not common where there are rewarded tasks (Orlady, et. Al. 1999) ATSB reason model adaptation and Swiss Cheese Model could effectively be used to demonstrate why these people were able to escape without being hurt. ATSB addresses the safety factors which are those conditions that heighten the risks to safe operations in flights. These include the technical events which are unexpected aircraft equipment performance including lighting, navigation and communication aids. Individual actions which are observable behaviors of the operating personnel increase the risk to safety. Local conditions which define the immediate environmental factors that increase safety risk including individuals, equipment and nature of tasks, (David N. 2007). The Swiss cheese model is more about organizational conditions, local conditions and unsafe acts which if not well addressed can cause the accidents show that all was perfect. These two models among many others indicates that the organization was well planned and prepared to cater for the incidents that would emerge The risky actions are put into practice when those involved fail to successfully process information mainly due to the state of the person at that particular time or when the system in place makes it difficult to process information. In this case, all factors that would increase risk were well catered for. Hazard, Loss and behavior in normal and abnormal situations also affect On February 18, 2010, a plane crushed in Austin, Texas involving a privately operated piper type PA-28-236 Dakota. Aboard was a Software Engineer who intentionally flew the piper into a 7 story building because he had problems with IRS and opted for suicide (BBC News). The accident was caused by human errors which were intentional. These can also be classified as exceptional violations which are isolated deviations from safe practice. The major causes of accidents involve individual actions and this particular action involved a person who was psychologically distressed and had precursors of actions that were not safe. The focus here is on the internal issues that influence human behavior and mainly the cognitive mechanism. The software Engineer had wrong intentions of committing suicide and wrongly executed the actions by hitting the 7 storey building. Here, the issues of normal and abnormal behavior arise in that this particular behavior that was exhibited was statistically rare hence abnormal. An abnormal behavior is that which is different from the typical. Mostly, distressed people exhibit signs of depression, sadness and anxiety among others and this is abnormal though studies show that not many people get to know their mental status (Canino, G.J. et al.1999) Maladaptivity also defines abnormal behavior whereby people behave in a manner that is not contributing in any way to their well being. Mental illness or disorder is a condition that is based on medical diagnosis and can be used to define abnormality. All behaviors that are rare are abnormal and so is that behavior which deviates from the social norms, (Allen, N.J. Hecht, T.D. 2004). The interests of this engineer could have been ignored and this led to an emotional response and low tolerance. The organizational culture also failed to define the benefits, attitudes and values that influence behavior. This risky action was as a result of a strong desire to personally gain and to avoid getting individual losses. It could also have been brought about by lack of reward for safe practice, poor safety culture and poor supervisory style and it was intended to bring about a loss as it was a random reckless act. The accident occurred due to the Engineer’s state of mind at that time and the systems in place while he was getting to the piper could not detect this negative aspect. In most cases errors and a chain of events cause safety related incidents. That state ed his self esteem that undermined his future potential, caused depression and embarrassment. Effective communication and Teamwork Another accident occurred in February 14, 2010 near Saada in Yemen. It was a helicopter operated by military Yemeni Army (CNN News). Aboard were 11 people who all perished when the helicopter carrying 7 soldiers who were wounded and four crew soldiers hit a military vehicle a few minutes after taking off. The accident occurred due to a technical fault. In aviation safety, good communication is of utmost importance among the pilots, the flight crew, the cabin crew and maintenance. Interpersonal communication varies considerably and it includes verbal, non-verbal, written and graphical including information cards for passengers on safety precautions. There are barriers to communication and these include status, cultural background gender, conflicts and respect which is defined by social distance where it becomes more difficult to communicate between strangers and power distance defined by status. Other communication barriers include physical conditions, stress and work load, (Wickens et.al 1997). For this particular accident, conflict, stress and workload could have interfered with prior communication on the condition of the aircraft as already the 7 military people on board were injured meaning there were conflicts and these were coupled with stress and too much work that could have interfered with communication. Being in a team as military workers, conflicts are unavoidable though a team’s success depends on how conflicts are handled. Some errors that emerge from teams include failing to respond or realize each others errors, failure to make independent decisions or judgment, abusing authority, failure to delegate responsibilities and poor coordination. Team members have both formal roles that are defined by the organization and informal roles that arise as a result of interaction. Teams are characterized by size, identity, interaction, roles, norms, status and leadership. In a team, interpersonal communication should be frank, regular and continuous. Such form of communication brings about the beneficial conflict where members become eager to get the views of others and competitive conflict where one team convinces others to join them in their views to avoid changing theirs (Henry, S.M.  Stevens, K.T. 1999). The major focus here should have been on management of the real risk which could have been identified through a risk assessment. A checklist could have been used to identify any risk which could have been threatening before taking off and communicating to consult and also to inform for monitoring. This is all risk management which involves identification, analyses, evaluation and treatment of risks. In this case, the team that was in the crew might have relaxed to investigate the state of the aircraft before taking off or had poor coordination and relied on each other for the judgment on the condition of the plane and reluctantly believed all was well. References Victoria B. and Monicah S. (2010) Associated Press www.CNN.com 2010 february 19th updated 0351 GMT Scislowska, (2010) Reported from Warsaw. Associated Press writers Deborah Seward in Paris, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Katarzyna Mala in Gorzno, Poland, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. 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