Flight Crew Decision-Making

Publisher Summary Flight crews make decisions all the time, from the captain's acceptance of the aircraft and flight plan prior to departure to docking at the gate after landing. Unfortunately, the decisions that get the most attention are those that result in disasters. Because decision-making takes mental energy and because a large body of research suggests that people do not always make optimal decisions, aircraft designers, carriers, and the FAA try to simplify crew decision-making by establishing standard procedures and checklists to cover anticipated failures or emergencies, and through crew training and automated systems. This chapter discusses the processes by which flight crews make decisions and addresses factors that contribute to decision difficulty and poor decisions, followed by factors that provide crew resilience in the face of high-risk challenges. Finally, it explores strategies for improving crew decision-making. Designing information displays to support good situation awareness and accurate problem diagnosis is a theme of current research and development efforts. Providing information on risks is more problematic. Mutual trust, respect, and a positive crew climate will continue to be the foundation for effective crew decision- making in future automated systems.

[1]  Barry Strauch.  Automation and Decision Making—Lessons from the Cali Accident , 1997 .

[2]  Susannah B. F. Paletz,et al.  Socializing the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System: Incorporating Social Psychological Phenomena Into a Human Factors Error Classification System , 2009, Hum. Factors.

[3]  H. Simon,et al.  Perception in chess , 1973 .

[4]  Jens Rasmussen,et al.  The role of hierarchical knowledge representation in decisionmaking and system management , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[5]  D. Dawson,et al.  The Sleep, Subjective Fatigue, and Sustained Attention of Commercial Airline Pilots during an International Pattern , 2006, Chronobiology international.

[6]  T. Pearson,et al.  Direct comparison of the efficacy of intuitive and analytical cognition in expert judgment , 1987, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[7]  G. Keinan.  Training for Dangerous Task Performance: The Effects of Expectations and Feedback1 , 1988 .

[8]  H. Simon.  Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning , 1991 .

[9]  Jens Rasmussen,et al.  Deciding and Doing: Decision Making in Natural Context , 1993 .

[10]  H. Simon,et al.  Models Of Man : Social And Rational , 1957 .

[11]  Jared Freeman,et al.  Critical thinking skills in tactical decision making: A model and a training strategy. , 1998 .

[12]  David O'Hare,et al.  'Pressing On' Into Deteriorating Conditions: An Application of Behavioral Decision Theory to Pilot Decision Making , 1995 .

[13]  E. Salas,et al.  Individual and team decision making under stress: Theoretical underpinnings. , 1998 .

[14]  H. J. Hörmann.  FOR-DEC: a Prescriptive Model for Aeronautical Decision Making , 1994 .

[15]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  Individual differences in strategic flight management and scheduling , 1991 .

[16]  E. Salas,et al.  Establishing the Boundaries of a Paradigm for Decision-Making Research , 1996, Hum. Factors.

[17]  John W. Senders,et al.  Human Error: Cause, Prediction, and Reduction , 1991 .

[18]  R. Glaser,et al.  Learning Theory and the Study of Instruction , 1989 .

[19]  E. Salas,et al.  Taking stock of naturalistic decision making , 2001 .

[20]  Ute Fischer,et al.  SAY IT AGAIN, SAM! EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES TO MITIGATE PILOT ERROR , 1999 .

[21]  Matthew J. W. Thomas.  Predictors of Threat and Error Management: Identification of Core Nontechnical Skills and Implications for Training Systems Design , 2004 .

[22]  Ute Fischer,et al.  Linguistic correlates of team performance: toward a tool for monitoring team functioning during space missions. , 2007, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[23]  Daniel R. Ilgen,et al.  Decision risk in dynamic two-stage contexts: Beyond the status quo. , 1994 .

[24]  Mica R. Endsley,et al.  Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems , 1995, Hum. Factors.

[25]  Walter E. Driskill,et al.  EVALUATING THE DECISION-MAKING SKILLS OF GENERAL AVIATION PILOTS , 1998 .

[26]  Roy W Chamberlin.  REJECTED TAKEOFFS: CAUSES, PROBLEMS AND CONSEQUENCES. , 1993 .

[27]  S. Sitkin.  Learning Through Failure : The Strategy of Small Losses , 1992 .

[28]  David O'Hare,et al.  Weatherwise: Evaluation of a Cue-Based Training Approach for the Recognition of Deteriorating Weather Conditions during Flight , 2003, Hum. Factors.

[29]  David O'Hare,et al.  The Role of Situation Assessment and Flight Experience in Pilots' Decisions to Continue Visual Flight Rules Flight into Adverse Weather , 2002, Hum. Factors.

[30]  Jared Freeman,et al.  Metarecognition in Time-Stressed Decision Making: Recognizing, Critiquing, and Correcting , 1996, Hum. Factors.

[31]  Judith Orasanu,et al.  Temporal Factors in Aviation Decision Making , 1994 .

[32]  Christopher D. Wickens,et al.  The Effects of Stress on Pilot Judgment in a MIDIS Simulator , 1993 .

[33]  Nadine B. Sarter,et al.  Learning from Automation Surprises and "Going Sour" Accidents: Progress on Human-Centered Automation , 1998 .

[34]  Dana E. Sims,et al.  Is there a “Big Five” in Teamwork? , 2005 .

[35]  Lorelei Lingard,et al.  Team Communications in the Operating Room: Talk Patterns, Sites of Tension, and Implications for Novices , 2002, Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

[36]  P. Hancock,et al.  Stress, Workload, and Fatigue , 2009 .

[37]  G. Klein,et al.  A recognition-primed decision (RPD) model of rapid decision making. , 1993 .

[38]  Charles E. Billings,et al.  Human-centered aircraft automation: A concept and guidelines , 1991 .

[39]  B. Kanki,et al.  Communication indices of crew coordination. , 1989, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[40]  Judith Orasanu,et al.  DECISION-MAKING IN THE COCKPIT. , 1993 .

[41]  David C. Nagel,et al.  Human factors in aviation , 1988 .

[42]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Hindsight is not equal to foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty. , 1975 .

[43]  R. Hastie,et al.  Hindsight: Biased judgments of past events after the outcomes are known. , 1990 .

[44]  A. Tversky.  Elimination by aspects: A theory of choice. , 1972 .

[45]  Kateri Jochum.  Teaming Up: Components of Safety Under High Risk , 2004 .

[46]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  Testing Three Team Training Strategies in Intact Teams , 2007 .