Aviation interviews

The interview with a retired pilot of a civil aviation company took place on May 12, 2011 and lasted approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was a semi-structured interview with a predefined set of questions concerning the incidents that the pilot or any of his colleagues had experienced during his flight career. In the beginning of the interview it was clearly announced to the interviewee that we were interested in the cases within air traffic where a small local mistake could have led to severe global consequences, but was corrected before an actual accident would occur. The interviewee was asked to recall such incidents. This question contained the following subquestions ... 

To obtain information about this incident, an interview with a domain expert was conducted. In the current paper, this interview was used as the only source of information to construct the formal ontology and the traces. Nevertheless, for more complex case smdies it may be interesting to consider more extensive knowledge elicitation techniques, involving a larger number of experts. Some example case studies in which such techniques were applied in the aviation domain are reported in [5] and [9]. 

The critical incident technique is regarded as an outgrowth of studies in the Aviation Psychology Program of the U.S. Army and Air Forces in World War 11. It is an accident study method in which an interviewer questions a nnmber of persons who have performed particular jobs and asks them to recall within a specified time period unsafe acts and/or conditions they have committed or observed [p. 303]. 

In examining the impact of economic deregulation on safety in the aviation industry, the literature surveyed in the previous chapter provides an excellent starting point. In particular, two books based on interviews with airline pilots, mechanics, FAA inspectors, accident investigators, and others (O Malley, 1993 Nance, 1986) provide first-hand perspectives on experiences in the aviation industry in the years after deregulation. These books serve as a useful supplement to the statistical analyses and other empirical data stunmarized in Chapter 2, and provide detailed information based on extensive interviews. 

Of the five interviews summarized in this chapter, all were with individuals who had at least 20 years of experience in the aviation industry, and three of them had close to 30 years of experience. Although relatively few interviews were conducted, the interview candidates were chosen for their extensive experience, and in some cases their role as opinion leaders within the industry. Therefore, they can appropriately be viewed as experts, rather than as a representative sample from within the industry. 

The data supporting this chapter were drawn fiom insurance claim files of QBE Aviation, the largest underwriter of aerial agriculture operations in Australia. A retrospective analysis was carried out of reports and correspondence compiled by the insurance investigators and assessors at the time the events occurred. In addition, case managers familiar with the events were interviewed to establish as complete a description of each occurrence as possible. 

A similar picture emerged when Jentsch, Hitt and Bowers (2002) examined the 61 aviation training issues contained within Funk and Lyall s (1997) human-automation interaction database of accident and incident reports, interviews, research reviews, and questionnaire data. Jentsch, Hitt and Bowers (2002) used an information processing model similar to that proposed by Nagel (1988) to classify automation-related problems. The results indicated that 86.9 per cent of issues were associated with perception and decision-making, while only 13.1 per cent of issues were associated with the action stage of human performance. Similarly, in air traffic control, 91.1 per cent of problems emerging from the introduction of a new air traffic control facility were classified as perceptual or decision-related in nature, while action issues accounted for only 8.9 per cent of concerns (Jentsch, Hitt and Bowers, 2002). 

The study adopted an interview-based approach to the investigation of the core components of effective error management, and error management training within the commercial aviation environment. As an explicit objective of the study was to collect data with respect to the tacit knowledge of domain experts, the study was designed within an interpretive framework. 

In addition to the literature review and interviews, Internet resources were investigated to collect technical information. Information sources included the airport trade associations [American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE), Airports Council International (ACI), Airport Consultants Council (ACC), and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)], airport users [Air Transport Association (ATA)], federal agencies (USEPA and USDOT), and California Climate Action Registry (CCAR). Pertinent research from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) was also included in the information gathering. A complete list of references is included on the attached CD-ROM. 

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