Human Factors Approach to Aircraft Accident Analysis,

Naval Accident reports involving the P-3 and F-4 aircraft were examined over seven and five-year periods, respectively. The critical incident technique was used to catalogue, describe, and analyze operational flight crew errors in both aircraft. An in-depth study was performed in order to identify those problems which were common as well as specific to both aircraft. The P-3 and F-4 aircraft were selected because of their completely different fleet missions and handling characteristics. From the F-4 accident reports, 437 human errors were isolated while the P-3 reports contained 345 errors. Twenty-eight major error categories emerged from the analysis of these errors. The accident reports were further analyzed for the errors which both aircraft had in common. Twenty common error groups were found to occur in the P-3 and the F-4, representing 22.9 and 18.8 of the total errors, respectively. The flight segment of TakeoffLanding, and the error type of Procedures, shared the most commonality across the two aircraft. The results of this investigation suggest that although common errors can be isolated across highly dissimilar aircraft with highly different flight missions, they comprise a relatively small percentage of total errors. By far, the majority of errors concerned characteristics unique to the particular aircraft in question. Implications in the remedial areas of crew coordination, training, discipline and design are discussed. Author