147 / 2017-07-07 21:29:01

The associations between pilot errors and organizational failures in civil aviation: analysis of 42 civil aviation accidents in China using the human factors analysis and classification system

In order to better understand how failures in latent organization influence on shaping human errors in civil aviation accidents and prevent accidents recurrence. This study analyzed 42 civil aviation accidents occurring in China between 1997 to 2010 using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) and further examined the associations between organizational failures and pilot errors by using chi-square(χ2) method, Goodman and Kruskal’s lambda(λ) and odds ratios(OR). The results show that there were 4 paths to failure from higher level in organizational failures to lower level in pilot errors including several high frequency HFACS key-categories: organization process (72.1%); resource management (79.1%); inadequate supervision (81.4%); crew resource management (72.1%); technological environment (48.8%); skill-based errors (62.8%); decision errors (60.5%) and violations (53.5%). Furthermore, pilot errors in category “decision errors” was 100 times likely to occur in the presence of “organizational process” failures in organization. This study suggests that countermeasures at organization levels are the most effective way to enhance the overall safety in civil aviation domain, such as supplement inadequate procedures; reassessment the current risk management procedures; defining the responsibility and obligation of each supervisory; changing safety culture; establishing evaluation index of CRM training performance; supplement of equipment which were necessary but deficiency. While this study suggests that research the advert mental states shaping factors in psychologically is required in the future and evaluate the effects of countermeasures proposed in this study in practice are required.