GENERAL AVIATION MAINTENANCE ACCIDENTS: AN ANALYSIS USING HFACS AND FOCUS GROUPS

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was used to classify maintenance-related general aviation accidents in the United States from 1990 to 2000 inclusive. The analysis revealed that among the maintainers, skill-based errors were most frequent cause of accidents, followed by violations committed by both professional maintainers and owneroperators. Furthermore, violations committed by owner-operators were twice as likely to be associated with a fatality. In addition, focus groups comprised of professional airframe and powerplant mechanics in both Alaska and Oklahoma, provided valuable information to validate the accident analysis and describe the state of general aviation maintenance today.