The Term Human Factors in Aviation Accidents and Incidents - Essay Example

Human Factors in Aviation Boeing eluci s, "Human error has been documented as a primary contributor to more than 70 percent of commercial airplanehull-loss accidents. While typically associated with flight operations, human error has also recently become a major concern in maintenance practices and air traffic management. Boeing human factors professionals work with engineers, pilots, and mechanics to apply the latest knowledge about the interface between human performance and commercial airplanes to help operators improve safety and efficiency in their daily operations. The term "human factors" has grown increasingly popular as the commercial aviation industry has realized that human error, rather than mechanical failure, underlies most aviation accidents and incidents. If interpreted narrowly, human factors are often considered synonymous with crew resource management (CRM) or maintenance resource management (MRM). However, it is much broader in both its knowledge base and scope. Human factors involves gathering information about human abilities, limitations, and other characteristics and applying it to tools, machines, systems, tasks, jobs, and environments to produce safe, comfortable, and effective human use. In aviation, human factors is dedicated to better understanding how humans can most safely and efficiently be integrated with the technology. That understanding is then translated into design, training, policies, or procedures to help humans perform better. Despite rapid gains in technology, humans are ultimately responsible for ensuring the success and safety of the aviation industry. They must continue to be knowledgeable, flexible, dedicated, and efficient while exercising good judgment. Meanwhile, the industry continues to make major investments in training, equipment, and systems that have long-term implications. Because technology continues to evolve faster than the ability to predict how humans will interact with it, the industry can no longer depend as much on experience and intuition to guide decisions related to human performance. Instead, a sound scientific basis is necessary for assessing human performance implications in design, training, and procedures, just as developing a new wing requires sound aerodynamic engineering. As improving human performance can help the industry reduce the commercial aviation accident rate, much of the focus is on designing human-airplane interfaces and developing procedures for both flight crews and maintenance technicians. Boeing also continues to examine human performance throughout the airplane to improve usability, maintainability, reliability, and comfort. In addition, human factors specialists participate in analyzing operational safety and developing methods and tools to help operators better manage human error. These responsibilities require the specialists to work closely with engineers, safety experts, test and training pilots, mechanics, and cabin crews to properly integrate human factors into the design of all Boeing airplanes. The major areas of concern in human factors include: flight deck design, design for maintainability and in-service support, error management and passenger cabin design. 1. Flight Deck Design Over the past several decades, safer and more reliable designs have been responsible for much of the progress made in reducing the accident rate and increasing efficiency. Improvements in engines, systems, and structures have all contributed to this achievement. Additionally, design has always been recognized as a factor in preventing and mitigating human error. When Boeing initiates a new design activity, past operational experience, operational objectives, and scientific knowledge define human factors design requirements. Analytical methods such as mockup or simulator evaluations are used to assess how well various design solutions meet these requirements. Underlying this effort is a human-centered design philosophy that has been validated by millions of flights and decades of experience. This approach produces a design that applies technology in the best way to satisfy validated requirements: Customer input. Boeing involves potential customers in defining top-level design requirements for new designs or major derivatives and in applying human factors principles. These activities ensured that operator requirements were considered from the beginning, and validated that the implementation included a sound pilot-flight deck interface. Appropriate degree of automation. Flight crew errors typically occur when the crew does not perceive a problem and fails to correct the error in time to prevent the situation from deteriorating. The systems support instrument displays with visual and tactile motion cues to minimize potential confusion about what functions are automated. The controls reinforce situational awareness and help keep the flight crew fully aware of changes occurring to the airplane's status and flight path during all phases of automated and manual flight. Crew interaction capability. Flight crew communication relies on the use of audio, visual, and tactile methods. All these methods must be used appropriately in the communication that takes place during flight. This includes crewmember-to-airplane, crewmember-to-crewmember, and airplane-to-crewmember communication. Communication, Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management interface. In the future, flight crews will be expected to assume much larger roles in route planning and metering for approaches. Cognitive engineering has already assumed an important role as the industry considers the effects of new technology on the skills, workload, and coordination with other airplanes required of both flight crews and air traffic controllers. For example, cooperation among human factors specialists, data link communications engineers, and end users has resulted in significant changes in the design of the interfaces that flight crews and controllers have with the computers that support their tasks and in the operational use of data link messages. The changes enhance user comprehension, reduce error rates, and result in decreased training requirements. 2. Design for Maintainability and In-Service Support Over the past several years, airplane maintenance has benefited from an increased focus on how human factors can contribute to safety and operational efficiency. In maintenance, as in flight deck design, drawing on the experience of airline and production mechanics, reliability and maintainability engineers, and human factors specialists, the chief mechanic oversees the implementation of all maintenance-related features. Computer-based maintainability design tools. In addition to ensuring access and visibility, human factors specialists conduct ergonomic analyses to assess the human capability to perform maintenance procedures under different circumstances. For example, when a mechanic needs to turn a valve from an awkward position, it is important that the force required to turn the valve must be within the mechanic's capability in that posture. For another example, when a maintenance operation must be accomplished in poor weather at night, secure footing and appropriate handling forces are necessary to protect the mechanic from a fall or from dropping a piece of equipment. Fault information team (FIT). Human factors considerations in maintenance also led to the formation of the FIT. The goal is to enable mechanics to maintain all commercial airplanes as efficiently and accurately as possible. This cross-functional team has representatives from maintenance, engineering, human factors, and operators. The interface should look the same to the mechanic regardless of the vendor or engineering organization that designs the component. Customer support processes. As maintenance support becomes more electronically based, human factors considerations have become an integral part of the aircraft design process for tools such as the Portable Maintenance Aid. In addition, the group is developing a human factors awareness training program for Aircraft maintenance engineers to help them benefit from human factors principles and applications in their customer support work. 3. Error Management Failure to follow procedures is not uncommon in incidents and accidents related to both flight operations and maintenance procedures. However, the industry lacks insight into why such errors occur. To date, the industry has not had a systematic and consistent tool for investigating such incidents. To improve this situation, Boeing has developed human factors tools to help understand why the errors occur and develop suggestions for systematic improvements. Two of the tools operate on the philosophy that when airline personnel (either flight crews or mechanics) make errors, contributing factors in the work environment are part of the causal chain. To prevent such errors in the future, those contributing factors must be identified and, where possible, eliminated or mitigated. The tools are Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA). This tool began as an effort to collect more information about maintenance errors. It developed into a project to provide maintenance organizations with a standardized process for analyzing contributing factors to errors and developing possible corrective actions A variety of operators have witnessed substantial safety improvements, and some have also experienced significant economic benefits because of reduced maintenance errors. Crew information requirements analysis (CIRA). Boeing developed the CIRA process to better understand how flight crews use the data and cues they are given. It provides a way to analyze how crews acquire, interpret, and integrate data into information upon which to base their actions. CIRA helps Boeing understand how the crew arrived or failed to arrive at an understanding of events. Since it was developed in the mid-1990s, CIRA has been applied internally in safety analyses supporting airplane design, accident and incident analyses, and research. Training aids. Boeing has applied its human factors expertise to help develop training aids to improve flight safety. An example is the company's participation with the aviation industry on a takeoff safety training aid to address rejected takeoff runway accidents and incidents. Boeing proposed and led a training tool effort with participation from line pilots in the industry. The team designed and conducted scientifically based simulator studies to determine whether the proposed training aid would be effective in helping crews cope with this safety issue. Similarly, the controlled flight into terrain training aid resulted from a joint effort by flight crew training instructor pilots, human factors engineering, and aerodynamics engineering. Improved use of automation. Both human factors scientists and flight crews have reported that flight crews can become confused about the state of advanced automation, such as the autopilot, autothrottle, and flight management computer. This condition is often referred to as decreased mode awareness. It is a fact not only in aviation but also in today's computerized offices, where personal computers sometimes respond to a human input in an unexpected manner. The Boeing Human Factors organization is involved in a number of activities to further reduce or eliminate automation surprises and to ensure more complete mode awareness by flight crews. The primary approach is to better communicate the automated system principles, better understand flight crew use of automated systems, and systematically document skilled flight crew strategies for using automation. 4. Passenger Cabin Design The passenger cabin represents a significant human factors challenge related to both passengers and cabin crews. Human factors principles usually associated with the flight deck are now being applied to examine human performance functions and ensure that cabin crews and passengers are able to do what they need or want to do. Some recent examples illustrate how the passenger cabin can benefit from human factors expertise applied during design. These include Automatic over wing exit. Computer analyses using human models ensured that both large and small people would be able to operate the exit door without injury. The handle was redesigned and tested to ensure that anyone could operate the door using either single or double handgrips. The exit tests revealed a significantly improved capability to evacuate the airplane. The human factors methodology applied during test design and data analysis contributed significantly to refining the door mechanism design for optimal performance. Other cabin applications. Working with payloads designers, human factors specialists also evaluated cabin crew and passenger reach capability, placard comprehension, emergency lighting adequacy, and other human performance issues. Because of the focus on human capabilities and limitations, the analyses and design recommendations were effective in reducing potential errors and in increasing usability and satisfaction with aircraft products. Summary A chief goal of the aircraft design philosophy is to build airplanes that can be flown safely while offering operational efficiency. An essential part of this philosophy is continuous improvement in designs and flight crew training and procedures. Integral to this effort is an ongoing attempt to better address human performance concerns as they relate to design, usability, maintainability, and reliability. By continuously studying the interface between human performance and commercial airplanes, manufacturers continues to help operators apply the latest human factors knowledge for increased flight safety." References Boeing. Human Factors. 20 Dec 2005. . Human Factors. Human Factors. 19 Dec 2005. . Human Factors International. 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