ASSIGNMENT ON

HUMAN FACTORS IN
AVIATION (M02EDM)

SUBMITTED BY:
VIKRAM SURANA

Sl. No.

Topic

Page No.

Cover Page
Index

1.1.

Part 1 Introduction

1.2

Objective

1.3

Analysis

1.4

Key Issues

1.5

Critical evaluation for work load methodologies

1.6

Conclusion - Part 1

10

Part 2

12

2.1

Analysis for Organisational, Systematic and CRM Failure

13

2.2

Key Issues

15

2.3

Summary

15

INDEX

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PART 1
We are facing a new generation of aviation professionals, and we need to be focused on initial
assessment and recruitment, to achieve the best profiles for the job.
Give your opinion about the best profile criteria for aviation professionals and based on what we
have focused during the module; give your critical evaluation of workload methodologies to be
employed in the aviation Industry.

1.1

INTRODUCTION

Aviation Industry is the backbone of todayss world and is considered vital for the growth and
development of every country. The rapid advancement in this industry has made the world
smaller and has tremendously increased the pace of work. Wether it is the Airlines or the
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Airports, Airplane manufacturers or Maintenance organisation or any other organisation related

to the industry, are all working at thier full efficiencies to cope up with the growing demand of
the indurtry across the world. Aviation is driven by the global society as millions of passengers
fly everyday. With this evergrowing industry the challenges to ensure a safe, secure and
comfortable aviation environment has also increased and as a result the demand within the
industry for skilled professionals is ever rising.
As per the Airbus Global Market Forecast 2014 2033:
With the first scheduled flight taking off in January 1914, 2014, MARKED THE CENTENARY
OF COMMERCIAL FLIGHT OPERATIONS. The airboat service carried passengers, one-byone, between St Petersburg and Tampa in Florida. It took 23 minutes and cost five dollars one
way, the equivalent of $116 in 2014 dollars.
The same journey took two hours by boat, 4-12 hours by train or up to 20 hours by road. The
economic benefits of air transport were clear. Thomas Benoist, the builder of the airboats, said,
Someday, people will be crossing oceans on airliners like they do on steamships today. As a
twenty-year forecast it was not far off the mark! Today, the global airline industry performs
around 32 million commercial flights a year, transporting 3 billion passengers and 50 million
tonnes of freight. Tampa International Airport handled 17 million passengers in 2013, an
incredible evolution in the relatively short time since this first commercial air service. New,
emerging markets continue to drive impressive growth, and their airlines cutting journey times
massively for millions of new travelers.
Aviation plays a major role in enabling mobility in the modern era, as trains and ships did for the
migrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
As per a IATA Airline Industry Forecast 2013-2017 which was released in Press Release no.
67 from IATA on 10th December 2013 at Geneva, IATA forecasted 31% increase in the
passenger numbers between 2012 and 2017. As per the forecast, by 2017 the passenger
number is expected to rise to 3.91 billion against 2.98 billion carried in 2012 which means an
increase by 930 million passengers. Of the new passengers, approximately 292 million will be
carried on international routes and 638 million on domestic routes. As per the forecast,
emerging economies like the Middle East and Asia-Pacific will emerge as the strogest players
with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) 6.3% and 5.7% respectively. Africa and Latin
America will follow with a CAGR of 5.3% and 4.5%.
Routes within or connected to China will be the single largest driver of growth, accounting for
24% of new passengers during the forecast period. Of the anticipated 227.4 million additional
passengers, 195 million will be domestic and 32.4 million will be international.

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The Asia-Pacific region (including China) is expected to add around 300 million additional
passengers by the end of the current forecast horizon. Of these, around 225 million or 75% are
expected to be domestic passengers.
With 677.8 million domestic passengers in 2017, the United States will continue to be the
largest single market for domestic passengers, although it will add only 70 million passengers
over the forecast period (2.2% CAGR). This reflects the markets maturity.
Overall the airlines expect a 31% growth in the aviation industry by 2017.
1.2

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this report is to indentify the needs and requirements of the industry in terms of
the human resource and skilled manpower which will be required in the near future. As we have
seen that the aviation industry is one of the fatest gowing industry in the world and to cope up
with its growth the need of skilled man power is one of the biggest concerns. If we look at the
requirement on a broader scale, Boeing company one of the biggest and largest airplane
manufacturing company in the world have projected in their 2014 Pilot and Technician Outlook
that:
As global economies expand and airlines take delivery of tens of thousands of new
commercial jetliners over the next 20 years, the demand for personnel to fly and maintain
those airplanes will be unprecedented. In support of this tremendous growth, the
aviation industry will need to supply more than one million new commercial airline pilots
and maintenance technicians between now and 2033
As per the forecast of personnel demand, there will be a requirement for 533,000 new
commercial airline pilots and 584,000 new maintenance technicians. The region wise pilots and
Aircraft Technicians demand between 2014 and 2033 is as follows:

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1.3

Analysis

From the above forecast we can very well expect that not only pilots and technician but there
will be a need for skilled manpower in every single field of aviation. Now the challenge is to get
the right people for the right job. For this it is very crucial that every employer has a well defined
profile for each job and the employee should have the right qualification and profile for the job.
Modern aviation has become a complex system determined by:
High demand
High production pressure
High peak activity - multitasking
Congested airports and airspace
High performance new technology aircraft
New technologies in ATM and Airports
Heavy regulation and safety practices
Management systems cost concern

1.4

Key Issues

So, what is the best profile for an aviation professional? What are the key qualities that he or
she must possess? What is the employer looking for? There are lot of questions that might
knock the doors of your brain, however the answer is that within aviation there are a variety of
career options and for each position there are certain professional qualification required.
However, while recruitting for an aviation position some of the key qualities that every aviation
employer looks for are divided into different categories depending on the position for which the
employer is hiring. These are:
a.

General Responsibilities of Aviators

Make safety the highest priority,
Seek excellence in airmanship,

Develop and exercise good judgment and sound principles of aeronautical decisionmaking,
Recognize and manage risks effectively, and use sound principles of risk management,

Maintain situational awareness, and adhere to prudent operating practices and personal
operating parameters (e.g., minimums),
Aspire to professionalism,
Act with responsibility and courtesy, and
Adhere to applicable laws and regulations.

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b.

Responsibilities towards passengers and people on the surface

Maintain passenger safety first and then reasonable passenger comfort,

Manage risk and avoid unnecessary risk to passengers, to people and property on the
surface, and to people in other aircraft,

Brief passengers on planned flight procedures and inform them of any significant or
unusual risk associated with the flight,

Seek to prevent unsafe conduct by passengers, and

Avoid operations that may alarm, disturb, or endanger passengers or people on the
surface.

c.

Responsibilities for Training and Proficiency

Participate in regular recurrent training to maintain and improve proficiency beyond legal
requirements,

Participate in flight safety education programs,

Remain vigilant and avoid complacency,

Train to recognize and deal effectively with emergencies,

Prepare for and review each lesson carefully, and

Maintain an accurate log to satisfy training and currency requirements.

d.

Responsibilities towards Security

Seek to maintain the security of all persons and property associated with their aviation
activities,

Remain vigilant and immediately report suspicious, reckless, or illegal activities,

Become familiar with the latest security regulations, and

Avoid special-use airspace except when approved or necessary in an emergency.

e.

Responsibilities towards Environmental Issues

Recognize and seek to mitigate the environmental impact of aircraft operations,

Minimize the discharge of fuel, oil, and other chemicals into the environment during
refueling, preflight preparations, servicing, and flight operations,

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Respect and protect environmentally sensitive areas,

Comply with applicable noise-abatement procedures and mitigate aircraft noise near
noise-sensitive areas, and

f.

Review and adhere to prudent hazardous materials handling procedures.

Responsibilities towards Use of Technology

Become familiar with and properly use appropriate technologies,

Monitor applicable airport advisory frequencies and report position accurately when
approaching airports without an operating control tower and other higher-risk areas, if
radio-equipped,

Use transponders or other position-indicating technologies during flight operations, if

available or otherwise directed by ATC, and use ATC radar advisories for VFR enroute
operations,

Carry redundant transceivers and navigational equipment and use them in appropriate
circumstances, and

g.

Use flight simulators and training devices as available and appropriate.

Responsibilities towards Advancement and Promotion of Aviation

Advance and promote aviation safety and adherence to the Code of Conduct,

Volunteer in and contribute to organizations that promote aviation, and use their skills to
contribute to society at largeand encourage other pilots to do so as well,

Demonstrate appreciation for aviation professionals and service providers,

Advance an aviation culture that values openness, humility, positive attitudes, and the
pursuit of personal improvement,

1.5

Promote ethical behavior within the aviation community, and

Mentor new and future pilots.

Critical evaluation of the workload methodologies in aviation

(Ref: Novells intelligent workload management)

The importance of human workload can be measured by the following sectors:
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a.

Safety

Safety seems to be the most important issue within the aviation industry, especially for
commercial aviation (such as airliners), that safety records is crucial. Human error is also
considered as an important factor to some aircraft accidents. Human factors research has
amply demonstrated that workload is an important determinant, although not the only relevant
factor, in causing human error (Kantowitz & Sorkin, 1983, chapters 2, 6, & 19). The moderate
levels of workload can affect the reliability of human performances, on the other hand, sudden
changes, extremes of workload, and some unpredictable variables may increase human error.

The ability of human to cope with information can be limited by the high workload, thus rise the
rates of error imposed within the environment, for example, federal and corporate regulations
are aimed to prevent pilot error but also increase the workload by the environmental complexity.
The human also can be bored when the workload is too low, thus leading error by not attend
properly to the environment. Modern technologies in the cockpit, such as flight-deck automation
and heads-up displays reduce the workload of pilots, but are enough to cause boredom.

(Image embedded from Dynamicflight on 01 October 2010)

b.

Crew size

Nowadays, the size of crew usually involves two pilots without flight engineers when flying a
wide body jet aircraft. The argument is that the current crews workload are excessive by the
reduction of the size from three to two. According to Wiener (1985), the workload does not
reduce by one third when adding the third crew, indeed the human error may be increased by
the factor of communication or crew size under loaded.
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c.

Automation

The concept of automation provides both potentials of increase and decrease of workload.
Designers tend to reduce the workload by allowing crews to allocated automatic devices when
performing tasks. However, crews workload may also increased by taking the responsibility to
monitoring operations by the automatic devices.
d.

Physical versus mental workload

The traditional measurement of physical workload is by kilocalories and oxygen consumptions.

However, this concept is becoming less and less relevant in aviation environment. Although
there still a possibility of pilot fatigue especially when mechanical system fails in an emergency,
but hydraulic systems and other system have been allocated the function of exerting large
forces that human operators used to take responsibilities. The mental workload is not an easy
concept to measure and defined, and scientists still trying to create techniques to measure.
1.6

Conclusion

To adress the issues regarding the best profile for aviation professional, various international
organizations have come up with different training programs, designed to impart the right
training in terms of knowledge and skill. Organisations like ICAO, IATA, ACI and many more are
now offering a variety of training courses for different aspects of aviation.
Apart from this the Civil Aviation Authorities in the country, individual companies also conduct a
lot of courses to train people in their respective companies. As the number of skilled and trained
professional required in aviation is huge therefore, International and national authorities also
authorises private organisations under direct monitoring and survillience from them, to conduct
these trainings.
From the above discussion it is evident that training is the most significant aspect of builing up a
skillful force for the future. Training for aviation professional in any field and position shall atleast
cover the following aspects:

Theoretical Training for the subject.

Practical Training for the skill.

Aviation Safety and Security awreness.

Overall personality development and Teamwork.

The training should not be limited to one time initial training rather it should be followed up with
recurrent trainings with a specified schedule at regular intervals.

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All these training issues were put forward in IATAs symposium called Next Generation of
Aviation Professional. ICAO, ACI and IATA have joined hands together to offer a number of
training which will give an individual a qualification awarded by these organisation together. One
such qualification in the IAP (International Airport Professional).
In my opinion quality training in the only solution to this problem. The training should not only
inculde the knowledge and skill training, but should also teach the student about the attitude
and behaviour needed to work aviation sector. For example the concept of Safety and Safety
Management System should be taught to every individual irrespective of his field of work or
expertise as it is said that Safety is a culture which every aviator has to adopt.

Regarding the methodologies to be applied within aviation industry to manage the workload, it
will depend on the nature of organization, complexity of work and the organizational
environment. But in general the following should be followed in all the organization as a basic
rule:

Assigning of work as per the qualification and competency of an individual

To give an adequate and reasonable time frame for completing a task and achieving the

goal.
A regular check on the fatigue levels of the employees shall be carried out.
Initial and recurrent training shall be given to employees
Reasonable pay scale to be defined for every employee based on the regional and

industry standards.
Team work shall be taught and promoted.

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PART 2
Make your critical evaluation of CRM and other systematic failures based on the final report on
the accident relating to the statement below:

Colgan Air Flight 3407, marketed as Continental Connection under a codeshare

agreement with Continental Airlines, was a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400, registration
number N200WQ, on a scheduled regional airline flight from Newark, New Jersey,
to Buffalo, New York. On February 12, 2009, at 10:17 p.m. EST, the plane crashed
into a house in Clarence Center, New York, after experiencing an aerodynamic
stall.[1] All 49 people on board were killed, along with one person in the house.

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2.1

Analysis for the Organisational, Systematic and CRM failures:

Systematic & Organisatinal Failure

The captain was properly certified

Barriers and Risk Mitigating Measures

Proper record for training and checks

but had a history of failed check

should be kept for every pilot and it should

rides and remedial training. The

be thorougly assessed before the issuance

Captain over time had failed four

of license or before hiring and giving them

FAA check rides for a certificate or

the command of an airplane. There has to

rating and had three unsatisfactory

be regulations as to the maximum number

airline check events and even after

of failures for a pilot which might be

seven failures he was made a

evaluated for his qualification and abilities

Captain.
A
reading
2.

the accident

to command an airplane
Ftigue risk management should be taught

report suggests that both pilots were

and should be mandated by the authority.

tired and before takeoff the first officer

In addition proper rostering of pilots and a

complained of not feeling well

check on thier health before flight should

a

be carried out.
Proper regulation to be introduced by the

rulemaking but did not address the

authority and followed by the operator in

role of commuting in putting tired

terms of the commuting distance and time

pilots in the cockpit.

for pilot from his accomodation prior to the

The captain hadnt had normal rest

flight.
To roster the pilots as per their sleeping

and the time of accident was about

habits as some pilots are comfortable flying

his normal bed time.

at night while others might prefer early

Low salaries and the struggle to keep

morning flights
Regulations for minimum salaries for pilots

up the hard earned right seat job.

has to be introduced.

FAA
3.

4.

5.

of

addresses

fatigue

in

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6.

Check on the amount and type of

Experience on the type of airplanes must

experience of a pilot.

be

checked

and

certain

minimum

CRM Failure
The first officer had 2,200 hours with
almost 800 of those in the Q400. So,
no shortage of flying time, as was
suggested
by
the
resulting
rulemaking, just some truly lousy
flying and cockpit management.

Barriers
and Risk
Measures
requirements
hasMitigating
to be mandated
by the
Monitoring of the CVRs at regular intervats
authority and followed by the operators.
to check if the checklists are followed on
regular basis and the pilots do what they
learn on the ground. Additional taining for
the pilots who lack in the above mentione
item and training for cockpit management
shoud be included in the regular training
modules for the pilots.
The crew carried was on a continuous Strictly ensuring the sterile cockpit
conversation about things unrelated to regulations are followed by checking the
the flight and the NTSB noted that the CVRs regularly. There is a need for CVRs
regulations for sterile cockpit were not with recording capacity for the entire
monitored by the crew. This could duration for flight.
have led the crew to deviate and kept
them away from properly preparing
their arrival at buffalo.
Both crew coordination and cockpit
resource management pretty much
fell apart as the airplane moved closer
to Buffalo. The captain was given the
no-ice Vref for the approach where
the system that operates the stick
shaker and pusher was at the setting
for operation in ice
The first officer was of no help and did
not question the captains actions. At
one point she actually retracted the
flaps without being told to do so.

More sincere training on CRM and

monitoring that the CRM techniques are
used by the crew at all times.

Duties and responsibilities to be well

4
defined. The crew should be taught about
the importance of coordination and efficient
crew should be awarded or rewarded for
the same
Lack of self assessment for bieng fit Crew needs to be taught how to self assess
5
to fly or not.
their fitness to fly and the organisational
pressure to fly, on the crew shall be
reduced.
7.
The first was also very upset with the This should be seriously taken into
behaviour of the company HR consideraion and can be achieved with
department toward granting her leave proper planing and coordination of the crew
as per her convinience
rostering department.
2.2 Key Issues
From the above shown critical analysis it becomes evident that there is an immediate need to
address these issues in a more practical and logical way.
In my opinion the rule given by the American congress, to the FAA to establish new standards
for first officer was not very appropriate. This is just going to be another burden on the industry
and will reduce the quality and quantity of Captains to command the airplane.
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As per the new standards, the first officer needs to have an Airlines Transport Pilot certificate
and atleast 1500 hours of total flight time which in the past used to be 250 hours with a
Commercial Pilot Certificate . Accordingly the time for these pilots to take the command will
also increase which is simply going to worsen the situation where already a shortage exists.
Moreover it is not the total numbers of hours that matters, rather it is the qulaity and type of
training that has a far greater affect.

2.3

Summary

From the accident report we have seen that the first officer had quite a good experience in
terms of flying hours but the experience on type was not to sufficient. Here it is also worth
mentioning that the way a light traininer is handled, recovered from unusual attitude is very
different than the bigger jets. Moreoevr the work load at the flight deck is extremely high as
compared to a light trainer.
Next is the financial issue in terms of the crew salaries specially the first officers. The first
officers job on regional airlines is a minimum wage job.
One media report said there was not a shortage of airline pilots, there is just a shortage
of pilots who are willing to spend that much time and money training for a job that pays
so little. That makes sense.
CRM, Physical Fitness and Sterile Cockpit regulations were not complied by the pilots which
appears to be one

of the biggest cause for crews distraction and inability to react correctly

to the current situation.

System should be developed and put in place hich can monitor the crews performance from
the begining of his training upto his retirement. This should be centrally controlled and
accessed by the authority.

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