Human Factors vs. CRM
CRMDEEN_at_aol.com
Sun, 13 Jul 1997 09:13:35 -0400 (EDT)
Graham Braithwaite is quite right with his challenge of "80% of accidents
are human caused", and his question reminds me of the "boundries" of CRM.
I also bring this up in class with the theme that 50-80% of accidents
are "crew" caused mishaps, with the other 20% being attributed to "Other".
The "others" we identify are maintenance, weather, ATC, airport design,
etc., etc.. ..the other human factors.
The manufacturer of our aircraft visit the facility recently and
declared that 75% of the accidents to the "worldwide fleet of Hercules" was
"operator error", and identified the main error was not following flight
manual procedures. This even included maintence crews who failed to set
brakes prior to engine start, installed components erroneously, etc., etc.
So, it seems to me, that the challenge to the research and instructor
efforts is to maintain some sort of a clarity to the fuzzy line of the
audience in the class. If I am teaching "aircrew", it does little to debate
that management has not implemented proper procedures for the aircrew to
follow, because once that crew is in the plane they will behave THEIR way,
not management's. If the class were of managers (I'm still waiting), the
topics would be more of their role in influenceing the crew behavior in the
aircraft, because once the crew is in the plane, they will do THEIR way.
Additionally, if the challenge the crew faces is a component
malfunction, whether by design or maintencence, the crew will deal with it
THEIR way. The discussion about blame and fault will come later; unless of
course the crew uses available resources, such as a radio to a technician,
which we would call good CRM, or would that be Human Factors?
Human Factors or CRM? I think CRM stands for CREW , not HFRM.
Greg Deen
HTI, C-130 ATS