Human Error in Aviation

HUMAN ERROR IN AVIATION
MOST COMMON ERORS

YOSI ASSAF
SFTY-345 / MITTEN SWARTZWELDER
12/5/10

Introduction:
Since the first aircraft flight made by the Wright brothers in 1903, the aviation industry has grown into billions of dollars of annual business throughout the world. By information from the international air transport association (IATA), over 1.6 billion passengers use the world airlines for business and leisure travel each year, also 40% of the world trade goods are transported by air. Air transport provides around 28 million jobs directly or indirectly, worldwide.
Since the 1950, concentrated efforts to reduce the accident rate in aviation have yielded unprecedented levels of safety. Today the accident rate for air travel is one fatality per 1 million flights. Although, the overall accident rate has declined considerably over the years , unfortunately reduction in human error related accidents in aviation have field to keep pace with the reduction of accidents due to environmental and mechanical factors. In fact, humans have been an increasing casual factor in both military and civilian accidents as mechanical equipment have become more reliable. Today every large percentage of all aviation accidents is attributable, directly or indirectly, to some form of human error.

Human error system
Most aviation accidents do not happen by one reason; they are the results of chain of events often culminating with the unsafe acts of aircrew. (“Swiss cheese” model of human errors from Heinrich’s Peterson) this theory of accidents has been embraced by most in the field of human error.
Within this model there are four levels of human failure, each one influencing the next.
Organizational influences often lead to instances of unsafe supervision, which in turn lead to preconditions for unsafe acts and ultimately the unsafe acts of operators. It is at this latter level, the unsafe acts of operators, that most accident investigations focus. HFACS – Human Factors Analysis and Classification System The Swiss cheese system was further developed in order of investigating accidents.
And is including 19 casual categories within the four level of human failure.

Statistics and information on human errors
By a research performed by the University of Illinois CAMI over the past 2 years has revealed: fatal accidents were four times more likely to be associated with a violation than non-fatal accidents.
Five most frequent skill-based error categories for accidents:

Five most frequent decision error categories for accidents:

Five most frequent perceptual error categories for accidents:

Five most frequent violations accidents:

References: yosi assaf
1. Wiegmann, D.W. (2005, may). Human error and general aviation accidents: a comprehensive, fine-grained analysis using hfacs. Retrieved from http://www.humanfactors.illinois.edu/Reports&PapersPDFs/TechReport/05-08.pdf
2. Shappell, Ph.D., S.S. (2003). Human error and general aviation accidents: a comprehensive, fine-grained analysis using hfacs. Retrieved from http://www.hf.faa.gov/docs/508/docs/gaFY04HFACSrpt.pdf
3. Lee, C.L. (2001). Human error in aviation. Retrieved from http://www.carrielee.net/pdfs/HumanError.pdf
4. Capoccitti, S.C. (2010). Journal of technology management & innovation. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-27242010000200006&script=sci_arttext

References: yosi assaf 1. Wiegmann, D.W. (2005, may). Human error and general aviation accidents: a comprehensive, fine-grained analysis using hfacs. Retrieved from http://www.humanfactors.illinois.edu/Reports&PapersPDFs/TechReport/05-08.pdf 2. Shappell, Ph.D., S.S. (2003). Human error and general aviation accidents: a comprehensive, fine-grained analysis using hfacs. Retrieved from http://www.hf.faa.gov/docs/508/docs/gaFY04HFACSrpt.pdf 3. Lee, C.L. (2001). Human error in aviation. Retrieved from http://www.carrielee.net/pdfs/HumanError.pdf 4. Capoccitti, S.C. (2010). Journal of technology management & innovation. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-27242010000200006&script=sci_arttext