Take, for example, the January 2009 landing of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River, or the management of 55 failures brought on by the explosion of an engine on Qantas flight 32 in November 2010. First of all, the hierarchical structure has demonstrated, time and again, its effectiveness in cases of emergency. So why not simply abolish hierarchy among pilots? There are sound reasons not to. All 150 passengers and 5 crew members were brought to safety. He kept the landing gear up, to allow the plane to land relatively smoothly. After the aircraft’s engines failed and no airport was sufficiently close for an emergency landing, Captain Chesley Sullenberger, assisted by co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, chose to set down in the Hudson. US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River, New York, on January 15, 2009. They are less inclined to challenge the captains and more likely to bow to their decisions (conformity bias), which can have a negative effect on safety. The aircraft hit the ground less than 60 seconds after take off, killing everyone on board.įinally, the halo bias can also affect first officers, who sometimes see the captain as all-knowing and infallible. The first officer noticed but did nothing for fear of reprisal. The captain, a domineering former military pilot, made a catastrophic error. This occurred during the crash of Korean Air cargo flight 8509. However, it demonstrates that under certain conditions first officers can feel less engaged, responsible or legitimate than the captain, and fail to react appropriately.Īn overly authoritarian captain can severely exacerbate this tendency and even paralyse the first officers to the point that they become mere bystanders. Given the changes that have taken place in cockpit organisation since that time, it is unlikely that a new study would produce such worrying results. In the 1970s, a study carried out in a flight simulator showed that when the captains pretended to lose consciousness during a landing, nearly one in four first officers failed to take over the controls. Therefore, the greater the power imbalance between the captain and the first officer, the higher the risk of false-consensus bias in the cockpit.Ĭaptains aren’t the only ones to be affected by this power imbalance. Also, the higher a person’s position in the hierarchy, the less negative feedback he or she will openly receive from subordinates. The mistake proved fatal to the captain, the first officer and 10 passengers.Ĭaptains can also be affected by the false-consensus bias – the tendency to believe that those around us approve of our ideas and actions to a far greater extent than is actually the case. Blinded by his first officer’s relative lack of experience, the captain ignored the latter’s repeated warnings and suggestions to go around. The captain – who, unlike the first officer, had flown many times over the Arctic region – believed the instruments were simply adversely impacted by the proximity of the north magnetic pole. This happened in 2011 during the approach of First Air flight 6560, when the relatively inexperienced first officer noticed that the aircraft was veering sightly off-course. The halo effect – i.e., the tendency to judge people on the basis of their characteristics (such as ethnicity, age, cast, religion, etc.) or past events unrelated to the situation at hand – can severely affect captains. Power and cognitive biasīeing in a position of power increases the risk of cognitive bias. Depending on the situation and the pilots’ personalities, this imbalance can sometimes compromise communication and adversely influence decision making. ![]() The power imbalance between the two creates a hierarchical system. Before takeoff, the captain decides who will pilot the aircraft and who will monitor the instruments, checklists and communication. They are more experienced, better paid and often significantly older than first officers. While all the pilots have the necessary skills to fly the aircraft, the captain is legally responsible for the flight. One that has been surprisingly overlooked is that of social relations within the cockpit.Ĭommercial-airline crews are made up of one or two first officers and a designated leader, the captain. Researchers have been investigating factors such as drowsiness, stress, attention, workload, communication, and cognitive biases. ![]() This has led to research in psychology, cognitive science and, more recently, in neuroergonomics. Considering the number of flights, accidents are now extremely rare, and 70% of them are attributable to human factors. Ever since the early days of commercial aviation, flight safety has steadily improved.
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