TAA Introduce Human Factors Course

“Australia’s aviation safety record is the object of envy throughout the world and many other countries continually seek to discover what we are doing right,” said TAA’s Flight Training Manager, Capt. Ray Baker. “One of the most important factors is our constant drive to be innovative and to be at least among the leaders – if not actually the pathfinders – in developing new and better avenues to safe and efficient operation. ”

“We are not introducing the system because we have a problem. The very fact that we have devised this system is an example of the reasons we are among the safest airlines. It is to enhance our already highly efficient form of cockpit operation. ”

Capt. Baker was one of a hand-picked team of TAA aviation experts who have been working over the past two years to devise the new system. Capt. Baker has also attended a United Airlines course in the United States called Cockpit Resource Management from which the proposal for TAA’s ATM program grew. He said that airlines around the world had been attempting for many years to devise methods to provide for the human factor in aircrew training.

“There is nothing in this form of training which makes it contradictory to the training which our crews undergo now. The principles of crew coordination in the cockpit have been known for 20 years. ” ATM provides the tools necessary to optimise cockpit teamwork and improve cooperation in joint problem solution. It is not intended to change the individuals but to enable them to use the principles so they work together to the maximum efficiency. It recognises that different people do things differently and provides the means to link individual skills into a cohesive unit. ATM facilitates the of skills, coordination, communication and how to get the best from each individual.

Capt. Baker said that the international aviation community had recognised over the past decade, that while accidents related to equipment failures, weather and other causes had declined with improved technology, human factors-related accidents had been static. International aviation statistics indicated that during the last 10 years or so, a large number of air carriers’ incidents involving loss of life could be attributed to human factors for part or all of their cause. “These human factor related accidents would not have occurred if one or more crew members had presented the problem in a timely fashion and it had been similarly received. Incidents can often stem from a lack of the process during which questions are asked and investigated. ”

This could become more of a problem with the modern cockpit.

The human mind is a poor monitor and future crews will be working with equipment that is very accurate and rarely fails. It may become boring and the crew could become complacent.

“There won’t be much stick and rudder work. The pilots of the future will be more concerned with management. They will be like the skipper of a ship is now. He doesn’t actually handle the wheel but manages the whole operation,” he said.

Capt. Baker said other airlines had introduced similar programs directed towards similar objectives. Some of these are directed at only captains. We felt that to achieve the most efficient management system, it was necessary to introduce the principles to all members of the flight crew, he said.

The major contributors to ATM were TAA flight crew and the University of Queensland Management Education Research Unit. Following an examination of a number of other airlines’ human factors/cockpit resource management courses, it was decided none of these was totally suitable for application within TAA. The Queensland University team flew on TAA aircraft on the flight deck and observed simulator training and pilot checking sessions. The airline also called together two workshop groups, one of Check airmen, who discussed and listed common cockpit management problems observed both in the simulator and online checking. Later, another 16 TAA pilots were asked to provide their views on how the airline operated, how the cockpit functioned and the areas they believed that needed improvement. During 1985, technical advisory groups were convened in Brisbane and Melbourne to assist the University team in producing scripts for videos of cockpit situations and to assist directly in the production of the video.

The video scripts were totally generated by voluntary groups drawn from the earlier workshops. Based on the experiences of group members, the scripts were contrived to demonstrate situations that could arise on the flight deck and will be used during the programme as case studies in problem solving.

TAA plans to have most of its aircrew through the course by July, at which time it hopes to be able to commence selling the concept to other airlines and agencies. To date TAA has interest from the DofA, Bureau of Air Safety Investigation, Air New Zealand, Army Aviation and hopes to attract further interest from the RAAF, particularly in the multi-engine transport and maritime patrol squadrons.

Australia has an excellent airline safety record and certainly, one reason for this is the basic attitude of companies such as TAA who are prepared to invest more than a million dollars in developing a human factors course that can only be a worthwhile boost to aviation safety.