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

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