An analysis of aircraft maintenance incidents using psychological and cognitive engineering knowledge
Document Type
Conference paper
Source Publication
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Publication Date
9-1-2016
Volume
60
Issue
1
First Page
1676
Last Page
1680
Publisher
Sage Publications, Inc.
Abstract
The aim of the current analysis is to complement existing studies of aircraft maintenance incidents by providing finer and more detailed explanations for their causes in terms of task and error types. A total of 109 aircraft maintenance incidents were analyzed with respect to knowledge and concepts from psychology and cognitive engineering. The skill, rule and knowledge-based framework by Rasmussen (1983) was used to identify the main task types involved in the incidents. Error types such as post-completion error, prospective memory failure and data-entry error were used as part of the analysis. System usability and the occurrence of interruptions, distractions and multitasking were also adopted as important factors in the analysis. Results suggest that more than 60% of the incidents involved rule-based performance. Almost 50% of the rule-based incidents can be explained in terms of the errors types and factors identified. This analysis provides a starting point for practitioners to discuss aircraft maintenance incidents using theoretically grounded concepts.
DOI
10.1177/1541931213601386
E-ISSN
21695067
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2016 SAGE Publications. Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Ng, M. & Li, S. Y. W. (2016). An analysis of aircraft maintenance incidents using psychological and cognitive engineering knowledge. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 60(1), 1676-1680. doi: 10.1177/1541931213601386