Human Error - Organization Behavoir

Human error is frequently linked with aviation accidents. In fact, from 1959 through 1989, it has been reported that aircrew actions were causal factors in more than 70% of accidents in the worldwide commercial jet fleet. According to a study from Clemson University, South Carolina, the majority of accident causal factors were attributed associated with supervisory and organizational, with decidedly fewer to aircrew and the environment. It was believed, the factors that most differentiated effective crews from weaker ones were leadership, decision-making, and resource management rather than more technically oriented skills. There was little input from the other pilots because the assumption was that the captain knows what he was doing. It was also considered somewhat disrespectful to question the decision of a superior. Part of this philosophy was military training came ego and autocratic decision-making processes. The attitude did not transfer well into civilian cockpits. The problems began to manifest in pilot error related airline accidents that claimed hundreds of lives.

In response to these occurrences, in 1979, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsored a workshop, Resource Management on the Flightdeck, which is commonly viewed as the origin of formal cockpit/crew resource management training (CRM). This workshop marked the expansion of CRM training into the military services. In 1980, a formal training program was set up to concentrate on human factors in the cockpit. The reason for the change from “cockpit” to “crew” resource management training because the training eventually branched out to include not only the pilots but also flight attendants, mechanics, dispatchers, management personnel, or anyone who is responsible for the safe of landing and taking off of the aircraft. However, many believe that CRM still experiences problem, particularly when it involves decision-making and communication among crewmembers.