Identifying Emerging Human Factors Risks in North American Airline Operations

In order to provide insight into the emerging human factors risks in North American commercial aviation operations, this paper identifies the major aircrew human errors in recent airline operation accidents and incidents. The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was used to categorize 267 accident and incident final reports, obtained from National Transportation Safety Board and Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigation report databases from 2006 to 2010. The results show that Unsafe Acts and Preconditions of Unsafe Acts are still the most prominent human factors risks, whereas trend analysis for 10 major HFACS categories shows that the violation increases compared to previous study. The study also finds that Crew Resource Management is still one of the prominent causal factors and that there is a growing demand for training. The study will support safety departments developing corresponding risk mitigation methods to improve aviation safety.