hazardous attitudes
Velázquez, Jonathan, "Behavioral Traps in Flight Crew-Related 14 CFR Part 121 Airline Accidents" (2016). Dissertations and Theses. 193. https://commons.erau.edu/edt/193
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Scholarly Commons Citation
This study examined pilot behavioral traps in the multi-crew Part 121 air carrier environment. Behavioral traps may be evidence of human error and poor decision making. Approximately three out of four airplane accidents result from human error (Broome, 2011).
The Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) conducts research on human error in an effort to
understand how people behave in a variety of situations.
Studying
human behavior in aviation can help mitigate the rate of accidents due to human
error. Research on aviator actions in the cockpit led to the discovery of
various unsafe pilot behaviors some called hazardous attitudes and others
behavioral traps (FAA, 2009).
The FAA has
termed some of these behaviors as hazardous attitudes, and they are categorized
as: Macho,
Anti-authority, Impulsivity, Resignation, and Invulnerability (FAA, 2009). Other pilot
behaviors are named operational
pitfalls or behavioral traps.
Lester and
Bombaci (1984) also found that the majority of general aviation pilots who exhibit
hazardous attitudes fall into the attitude of Invulnerability (43%) followed by
Impulsivity (20%) and Macho (14%).
