Advanced Human Factors
NTSB Accident Report Reading
• Seattle Cessna 172, late night collision with terrain
• Identify:
• Lapses in Judgment
• Risk Assessment (Remember back to PPL)
• The straw that broke the camels back
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Vacuum Failure in IMC
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_x4IU8Ig4
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What is Aeronautical Decision Making?
• A systematic approach to the mental process used by aircraft pilots to
consistently determine the best course of action in response to a
given set of circumstances
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Pilot Error
• Pilot contributed to substantially, or even caused, an accident
• Why is “Pilot Error” incorrect?
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Human Factors-Related
• It is never just one thing that leads to an accident
• Always a chain of events
• 75% of all aviation accidents are Human Factors-Related
• Sources of error:
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Misinterpretation of charts
Failure to understand clearances
Inability to use equipment properly
Lack of crew coordination – Colgan Air 3407
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Crew Resource Management – Airlines to GA
• Emphasizes the effective use of all available resources
• Redundancy as a check mechanism
• Workload management
• Situational Awareness
• Communication
• These have direct correlations from the airlines to the GA cockpit
• Work together to solve problems as they arise
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Single Pilot Resource Management
• Same as CRM, but with only one pilot
• Personal Limitations
• Remember back to VFR Cross-Countries:
• Was the cockpit cluttered?
• Imagine what it is like in IMC
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Task Command
• What does being an effective PIC mean?
• Recognize your limitations and assess your fitness for flight
• IMSAFE checklist
• Use a Risk Assessment Tool, if available
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Recognize Resources
• Even if you know about the resources, you may not be able to use
• Use these resources appropriately
• Use these resources at the appropriate time
• What do you do if your iPad fails? (Checkride)
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Avoid Work Overload
• Task Saturation happens when a pilot is unable to complete all of the
required elements for a flight an skips a necessary element
• Plan ahead and prioritize
• Checklists, ask passengers, etc.
• The key is to recognize that you are overloaded
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Communicate Effectively
• Even the best pilot in the world is useless in IMC if he is unable to
convey information to ATC correctly
• Remember that communication goes two ways
• When in doubt, ASK!
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Situational Awareness
• Know where your aircraft is at ALL times
• An IFR pilot who is unable to visualize his position is useless
• More than just in the plane:
• Recognize issues before the flight: weather, aircraft issues, etc.
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Decision Making Process - DECIDE
• D – Detect the fact that a change has occurred
• E – Estimate the need to counter or react to the change
• C – Choose a desirable outcome for the success of the flight
• I – Identify actions which could successfully control the change
• D – Do the necessary action to adapt to the change
• E – Evaluate the effect of the action
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PIC Responsibility
• Final authority (91.3)
• Who is PIC with two pilots?
• Consider adding to your Passenger Brief
• PIC responsibility: to establish an atmosphere of open communication
in the cockpit
• The best SIC is of no help if they are stressed -or worse yet- scared
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Hazardous Attitudes
• Anti-Authority
• Someone who doesn’t want to follow the rules
• “Don’t Tell Me”
• Follow the rules – there are reasons for them
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Hazardous Attitudes
• Macho
• Someone who takes risks to prove they are better than the rest
• “I Can Do It”
• Taking chances is foolish
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Hazardous Attitudes
• Invulnerability
• Someone who thinks that they are invisible
• “Nothing Can Happen to Me”
• It CAN happen to me
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Hazardous Attitudes
• Impulsivity
• Someone who needs to get something done quickly will take more chances
• “Do It Quickly”
• Not so fast. Think first.
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Hazardous Attitudes
• Resignation
• Someone who gives up and refuse to handle the situation
• “What’s the Use?”
• I’m not helpless, I can make a difference
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Aviation Physiology
Overview
• Importance of Aeromedical Factors
• Sensory Systems for Orientation
• Spatial Disorientation
• Optical Illusions
• Physiological and Psychological Factors
• Medical Factors
• Cockpit Resource Management
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Why Do I Care?
• Instrument flying requires a higher degree of concentration and
organization
• Flying while sick, medicated, or intoxicated can greatly impair the
pilot’s ability to safely fly the airplane
• Instrument pilots must be able to diagnose and interpret signals sent
to the body, from the sensory system, in order to overcome various
forms of spatial disorientation
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Sensory Systems for Orientation
• Visual System
• Vestibular System
• Postural
• Auditory Cues Visual System
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Visual System
• Primary method of orientation
• Responsible for 80% of flight information received
• Works similar to a camera focusing light through a lens
• Sends signals to the brain via an optic nerve
• Subject to visual illusions and contains blind spots
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Visual System
• Light enters the eye through the cornea
• It then passes through the lens and falls on the retina
• Sensors located on the retina convert light into electrical impulses
that are sent to the brain via the optic nerve
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Visual System
• Cones
• Sensors concentration on the center of retina, the fovea
• Primarily used for central viewing
• Require extensive light to become active
• Primarily used for daytime viewing
• Detects color
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Visual System
• Rods
• Sensors concentrated on the peripheral of the retina
• Highly sensitive to light
• Primarily used during low light conditions, at night
• Do not detect color
• Contains rhodopsin, visual purple
• Optic Nerve
• Contains no rods or cones
• Result in loss of vision
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Socrative Multiple Choice 1
• What do cones require to be effective?
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Vitamin C
Vitamin A
Zinc
Grape Soda
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Visual System
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Visual System – Blind Spot
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Black and White Vision
• Images cast on the retina are converted from light energy into
electrical impulses then sent to the brain
• Rods contain the protein rhodopsin which in turn contains a
derivative of Vitamin A
• Located on the periphery of the eye, the rods are 10,000 times more
sensitive to light than the fovea
• A healthy human has about 120 million rods in each eye
• Rods are light sensitive and used for viewing in low light conditions,
such as night time
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Color Vision
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Color sensitive cells in the retina are called cones
There are 3 types of cones: Red, green, blue
6 million cones add color detail to images sensed by the rods
The photo pigment in the cones responsible for color are called rhodopsin
Each type of cone transmits light into wavelengths of light energy sent to
the brain
• Cones require much higher light energy than rods to elicit a response
• They are used for detailed viewing during day light hours
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Limits to the Visual System
• Adjusting from high light to low light conditions
• Vitamin A deficiency and its affect on vision
• Optical illusions
• Daylight viewing vs. night time viewing
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Vestibular System
• The inner ear houses 3 semi-circular canals
• Fluid in the canals orientate the body along the three main axes
• These axes correspond to the axes of pitch, roll and yaw in an aircraft
• This system falls secondary to the ever-dominant visual system
• False signals can overwhelm an untrained pilot
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Vestibular System
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Semicircular Canals and Corresponding Axes
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Inside the Semicircular Canal
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Fluid in Motion Starting a Turn
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Loss of Sensations
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Postural and Auditory
• Postural uses the body’s center of gravity
• A person can be upside down, but if pulling 1 positive G load, it will feel like
sitting normally right side up
• Auditory uses aural queues when other senses are limited
• Engine sound (low pitch = airspeed reduction)
• Wind speed (increase in wind noise = airspeed gain)
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Postural Orientation
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Illusions in Flight
• Vestibular Illusions
• When visual cues are not received and the body has to rely on information
being sent from the vestibular nerve
• Visual Illusions
• Due to optical illusions created by the eyes. Experienced pilots are aware of
these illusions and are not as susceptible
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Spatial Disorientation
• When a pilot becomes unaware of his or her position due to a
disharmony between multiple senses
• When this occurs, full focus should be placed on the flight
instruments in order to maintain safe flight attitudes
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Acceleration – Somatogravic Illusion
• Rapid acceleration can feel like
pitching up
• This is dangerous during low
visibility takeoffs and go around
due to proximity to the ground
• While accelerating, the pilot
might falsely sense an over
pitching moment and
incorrectly pitch down
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The Leans
• Discussed before, during long durations of constant motion, the fluid
can re-settle in the canal
• This can lead to a sense of not turning during a turn
• When the pilot rolls wings level, the fluid will begin flowing in the
opposite direction, giving the false sensation of beginning another
turn
• This is dangerous because he will try to correct by attempting to roll
until he feels like he is wings level, when in fact he will be in a turn
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Coriolis Illusion
• Occurs when the fluid in a canal of the same axis of motion, begins to
flow at the same rate as the motion
• Due to rapid head movement fluid in another canal will begin to
move giving the false sense of motion in the new canal’s axis
• Pilot must develop an instrument scan which minimizes head
movement
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Inversion Illusion
• Due to abrupt level off from climb
• Body feels as if it were tumbling backwards
• Pilot might incorrectly adjust for level by pushing nose down into a
dangerous attitude
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Elevator Illusion
• Due to strong updraft or downdraft
• Pilot feels as if in a climb or descent
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Graveyard Spirals
• Prolonged turns lead to sense of not turning
• Aircraft begins to descend in turn and pilot pulls back on yoke
• Because he is pulling back but not reducing bank, the descending turn
steepens into a tight spiral
• Proper recovery is to roll level wings (using the Attitude indicator) and
slowly recover from the dive, reducing throttle to idle to avoid
exceeding VNE
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Graveyard Spins
• After recovery from a spin
• Pilot feels as if spinning in opposite Direction and will incorrectly try
to recover from a non-existent spin, thus causing another and
crashing
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Coping with Spatial Disorientation
• Do not make abrupt movements
• Always be aware of the state of the aircraft
• Understand the cause of the illusion
• Correct based off of the aircraft instruments
• Cross-check instruments for accuracy
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Visual Illusions - Autokinesis
• In a dark sky with few references
• A single light, or point of light to focus on
• Eye cannot fully focus and will begin rapid movement
• The object will appear to move
• Pilot might try to maintain attitude position and chase the light
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Visual Illusions – False Horizon
• Stars, boats, or sloping clouds
create a new horizon
• Pilot tries to align aircraft with
new horizon
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Empty-Field Myopia
• Occurs at night
• When the eyes have nothing to focus on, the eye will default to focus
4 feet in front of you
• This inhibits that ability to see objects far away unless the pilot
forcibly tries to focus on other distances
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Other Visual Illusions
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Runway Width
• A narrow runway makes pilot appear high and fly a lower than normal
approach, possibly striking terrain
• A wide runway makes the pilot appear low and fly a higher than
normal approach, possibly over shooting the runway
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Runway Slope
• An up-sloping runway makes pilot appear high and fly a lower than
normal approach, possibly striking terrain
• A down-sloping runway makes the pilot appear low and fly a higher
than normal approach, possibly over shooting the runway
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Featureless Terrain/Black Hole Approach
• Lack of terrain makes pilot appear high
• Pilot flies lower approach
• Approaching a runway at night with little or no other light references
make it difficult to judge distance, altitude and proper glide path
• Use your PAPI or VASI whenever able!
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Haze and Fog Effects
• Haze
• Haze makes object appear further away
• Pilot feels higher on an approach and flies lower
• Fog
• Flying into fog creates a pitching up illusion
• Pilot starts to fly lower
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Coping with Visual Illusions
• Understand illusions
• Anticipate illusions
• Fly higher if possible when landing
• Rely on the instruments
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Affects of Stress
• Stress is a good thing (Eustress) in the right amount
• Too much stress can suddenly cause human performance to
deteriorate (distress)
• Physical, psychological, and physiological stressors
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Affects of Fatigue
• Acute fatigue vs. chronic fatigue
• Inability to focus
• Reduction in mental and physical ability
• Increases frequency of mistakes
• Impairs judgment
• Can have deadly consequences
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Affects of Alcohol
• Histotoxic hypoxia
• Impairs judgment
• Decreased reaction time
• Increases fatigue
• Increased effects at higher altitude
• Regulations regarding alcohol…
• Crew member requirements
• Passengers requirements
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Drugs
• Illegal drugs (narcotics, opiates etc.)
• Prescription medications
• Over-the-counter (OTC) medications
• Most drugs not tested at high altitudes
• Always consult an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME)
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IMSAFE Self Checklist
• I – Illness
• Do not fly due to sinus and ear blockages
• M – Medication
• Even non drowsy medication has side effects at high altitudes
• S – Stress
• Acute Stress: Due to immediate threat
• Chronic Stress: Levels that create intolerable burden
• Some stress is good, too much is detrimental
• A – Alcohol
• Regulations vs. personal minimums
• F – Fatigue
• Acute: Short periods of time
• Chronic: Long periods of fatigue
• E – Eating
• Maintain a healthy diet and stay hydrated
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Cockpit Resource Management
• Organized cockpit
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Have all publications readily available and organized neatly
Place bookmarks in books and approach plates
Fold all charts neatly to the page that shows route of flight
Dial in all frequencies and navigation frequencies before workload increases
If using GPS, have route programmed before departure
Be familiar with where everything is located in the cockpit
Be familiar with the entire route and airport approaches
Take more than one pen or pencil
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Crew Resource Management
• Use inside and outside resources for help
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Passengers and Crew Members
Air Traffic Control
Flight Service Station
Enroute Flight Advisory Service (EFAS)
• Flight Watch
• Dispatchers
• Other Aircraft
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References
• Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
• Instrument Flying Handbook
• Instrument Procedures Handbook
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