Emergent Commercial Trends and Aviation Safety by Ruwantissa I.R. Abeyratne

Author:Ruwantissa I.R. Abeyratne [Abeyratne, Ruwantissa I.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology, Transportation, Aviation, Repair & Maintenance, Piloting & Flight Instruction
ISBN: 9780429862700
Google: TKybDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-08-17T03:40:08+00:00

Human Factors

The safety of civil aviation is largely dependent upon the professional conduct of the technical crew and cabin crew of the aircraft, and on interaction between the two. Whatever the relationship between the flight attendant and passenger and flight attendant and pilot, both relationships have this in common: with regard to an accident caused as a direct or indirect result of the flight attendant’s conduct – be it an injury to a passenger or an aircraft accident precipitated by the conduct of the flight attendant affecting pilot performance – the legal consequences of air carrier liability would revolve round whether the act of the flight attendant or pilot, as the case may be, was tantamount to wilful misconduct on the part of the carrier. This issue is explored further in Chapter 12. To a lesser extent, safety is also affected by the conduct of airline passengers.

Air Crew Fatigue

An issue which has aroused much interest is air crew fatigue, where flight safety experts have been involved in using scientific methods to study the contentious issue of pilot fatigue as a cause of incidents and accidents. Although a complete determination of fatigue-causing factors which may have an adverse effect on performance of technical crew on a flight has yet to be made, the limited information and data currently available are being used by the experts to establish a system of working guidelines and rules.

Sleep deprivation is considered a major factor in air crew fatigue, which can produce loss of concentration, slow reaction time, and produce visual illusions, disorientation and, more seriously, misinterpretation of flight instrument information. Fatigue may cause loss of interest in pilots, making them neglect the tasks of completing flight procedures and other necessary routines in flight.35 Useful countermeasures to combat pilot fatigue have been identified recently by Airbus Industrie, which recommended that airlines take measures such as monitoring cockpit workload, flight crew alertness, sleep loss, and the snoozing habits of crew.36 Another study by Boeing, which followed an ‘alertness management’ philosophy, identifies preplanned cockpit naps, assigning relief crew members to a flight, electronic crew activity monitors and scheduled interaction with cabin crew as effective measures in combating crew fatigue.37

Analyses of confidential reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System reflect that approximately 21 per cent of all reported aircraft accidents are related to fatigue.38 From a legal perspective, this means that fatigue could be a serious factor for consideration on the issue of wilful misconduct, particularly if it can be shown that the defendant airline did not make any serious attempts to address the problem. Legal connotations of fatigue as an identifiable element of wilful misconduct may possibly emerge, particularly in instances relating to ultra-long-haul flights, where flight duty of a technical crew member in charge of a flight exceeds 16 hours. Dr Michael Bagshaw, Senior Aviation Physician of British Airways, has observed:

As soon as we fly, we are venturing beyond our natural environment and compromising our health and safety, so it is a question of minimizing risks by maintaining a sense of proportion.

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