Critical Essays on Human Factors in Aviation – serie

Crew Resource Management (CRM) training was first introduced in the late 1970s as a means to combating an increased number of accidents in which poor teamwork in the cockpit was a significant contributing factor. Since then, CRM training has expanded beyond the cockpit, for example, to cabin crews, maintenance crews, health care teams, nuclear power teams, and offshore oil teams. Not only has CRM expanded across communities, it has also drawn from a host of theories from multiple disciplines and evolved through a number of generations. Furthermore, a host of methodologies and tools have been developed that have allowed the community to better study and measure its effect on team performance and ultimately safety. Lacking, however, is a forum in which researchers and practitioners alike can turn to in order to understand where CRM has come from and where it is going. This volume, part of the 'Critical Essays on Human Factors in Aviation' series, proposes to do just that by providing a selection of readings which depicts the past, present, and future of CRM research and training.

Most aviation accidents are attributed to human error, pilot error especially. Human error also greatly effects productivity and profitability. In his overview of this collection of papers, the editor points out that these facts are often misinterpreted as evidence of deficiency on the part of operators involved in accidents. Human factors research reveals a more accurate and useful perspective: The errors made by skilled human operators - such as pilots, controllers, and mechanics - are not root causes but symptoms of the way industry operates. The papers selected for this volume have strongly influenced modern thinking about why skilled experts make errors and how to make aviation error resilient.

Decision making pervades every aspect of life: people make hundreds of decisions every day. The vast majority of these are trivial and without a right or wrong answer. In some respects there is also nothing extraordinary about pilot decision making. It is only the setting that is different - the underlying cognitive processes are just the same. However, it is the context and the consequences of a poor decision which serve to differentiate aeronautical decision making. Decisions on the flight deck are often made with incomplete information and while under time pressure. The implications for inadequate performance is much more serious than in many other professions. Poor decisions are implicated in over half of all aviation accidents. This volume contains key papers published over the last 25 years providing an overview of the major paradigms by which aeronautical decision making has been investigated. Furthermore, decision making does not occur in isolation. It is a joint function of the flight tasks; knowledge; equipment on the flight deck and other stressors. In this volume of collected papers, works from leading authors in the field consider all these aspects of aeronautical decision making.

Simulations have been a fixture of aviation training for many years. Advances in simulator technology now enable modern flight simulation to mimic very closely the look and feel of real world flight operations. In spite of this, responsible researchers, trainers, and simulation developers should look beyond mere simulator fidelity to produce meaningful training outcomes. Optimal simulation training development can unquestionably benefit from knowledge and understanding of past, present, and future research in this topic area. As a result, this volume of key writings is invaluable as a reference, to help guide exploration of critical research in the field. By providing a mix of classic articles that stand the test of time, and recent writings that illuminate current issues, this volume informs a broad range of topics relevant to simulation training in aviation.