WHY HUMAN FACTORS?

To start, here are four good reasons:

• Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial meltdown (1979)

• The Bhopal gas leak (Union Carbide; 1984)(The worst industrial disaster in the history of the world)

• Tenerife (Pan Am and KLM 747's) runway collision (1977) (The deadliest aircraft disaster in history, non-terrorism)

• Space Shuttle disasters (Challenger, 1986; Columbia, 2003) 

     The most commonly asked question that we experience in the field is, "What is human factors?" We take it for granted that such an important and relatively new science has still not been fully understood or appreciated by a large number of organizations and industries.

     Although there will be variations in the "textbook" definition of human factors by various authorities and agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration definition is highly representative of most others and reads as follows:

     Initially, human factors dealt more with ergonomics issues such as seat position, workstations, control and instrument layout, repetitive motion, temperature, lighting, etc. Much research has and continues to be done to help design things to make them more "user friendly." Examples would include designing dials that turn something on or increase its intensity if it is turned to the right, or turn off or decrease its intensity if turned to the left. In the cockpit of an airplane, the classic "T" design of the instruments was arranged in a "human factors friendly" array for the pilot. The classic three-pointer altimeter was replaced with the two-pointer because of difficulty in discerning the altitude of the aircraft without extra attention, which was directly attributable to a number of aircraft crashes.

     Today, human factors goes beyond just dials and gauges and addresses an entire system. At the center of this system is the liveware (human), who is surrounded by hardware, liveware, the environment, and software (also known as the SHELL model). Unfortunately, the weakest part of the system is the human as humans are prone to error. Much work and research continues into what causes humans to be so susceptible to errors. Cognitive processes are of particular interest today because many errors are caused less by machines and more by the way people "think." Why humans are so susceptible to errors and how to mitigate these errors is critically important to what human factors training is all about.

     Historically, statistics have shown that approximately 80% of aircraft accidents are due to human error (formerly known as pilot error but we feel strongly that single point blame is generally no longer appropriate as we are seeing more systemic failures instead). You may have heard about an unfortunate string of charter and business aviation accidents recently. These are crashes that are not due to a malfunctioning aircraft or a lack of proficiency by the crew; but due to failures in human performance that center around judgment, decision-making, leadership abilities, disregard for standard operating procedures, and violations of regulations, to name a few. Numerous deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage could possibly have been prevented if human factors training was provided to those crews, particularly in the challenging on-demand jet charter business where Crew Resource Management (CRM) training is not yet mandatory.  

     Human factors training addresses the human part of aviation. "In the jet charter and airline world, practicing stalls and steep turns for 30 minutes in recurrent training is nice but that is not what is killing pilots and their passengers," says company president Robert Baron. "The depth and credibility of our training is not something you will find at the major flight training vendors as they simply lack the knowledge and experience to properly facilitate this type of training. Assigning a CitationJet instructor to 'teach' a (2 hour) course on CRM/human factors is not only ludicrous but simply a waste of time and resources for both parties. Our facilitators are trained in human factors and/or psychology and have many years of experience as aviation professionals," he adds.

     Our human factors courses and programs are designed for pilots, flight attendants, maintenance technicians, dispatchers, or anybody else acting in a support capacity in flight operations. Our training topics are supported by research-driven data and are current, relevant, and up-to-date. Courses are taught in a building-block fashion for the most efficient learning environment. We offer stand alone human factors courses as well as implementation of full human factors safety programs at your flight department including Train The Trainer courses. Human factors is not just for aviation either! Our human factors programs are being openly embraced in other industries and we can bring HF to your non-aviation organization as well.

    Feel free to browse our website for more information on our work and research in this new and important field known as human factors.