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UK participants sought for a CAS infringement study

MikeE wrote:

Oh dear. The sample doesn’t need to be random and, as you say, it won’t be in the sense that I can pick a random number from a group. It will be representative of pilots who have made an error, in this case leading to an infringement. It is perfectly normal in research practice to do so and this research is overseen by two senior lecturers, both professors in their field (as was my last research which adopted the same approach to recruitment and similar methodology). It has also been approved by a major university research ethics committee. That is good enough for me.

Kind regards

Mike

I beleive it does need to be random. I have now had a total of 15 people write to me who have infringed and been on the GASCo course. From discussions here and elsewhere it is apparent that those who have written, are not representative of the majoity. There are a number of accounts in the public domain of pilots who have infringed. It is also apparent that their accounts are representative of a different group of pilots.

If your sample is not representative of the whole population the results will also not be representative.

If you wish to base your study on one group of pilots then that is a matter for you. I hope you will make that clear in your report please, so those of us who would take a different view, can point out the results are misleading at best.

Anyway, and with respect, I had written a long passage with examples as to why you may well conclude many infringements are attributable to pilot error (as will the pilots also accept they have erred) when infact the elephant in the room will have been ignored by your research and the pilot’s involved. However, I have a feeling that your mind is closed to your perceptions of the causes and the belief that because two senior lecturers have approved your research project it must be sound.

I wish you good luck, but I beleive you are misguided and your findings will be positively damaging to the GA community.

Last Edited by Fuji_Abound at 22 Oct 19:44

I realise from collective experience there are many plausible factors (airspace design, poor training, poor graphical dissemination of airspace NOTAMS, lack of understanding of ATC services in the UK, poor planning, etc) which may lead to an infringement. But there may be cognitive biases worth identifying – I believe this is the purpose of the research, MikeE will correct if I have over simplified the interpretation.

If the research is useful will be judged in part by peer review.

Why pre judge? As pilots don’t we want to learn if we suffer from some biases which we should protect against? The standard tests of knowledge, skill and attitude when judging a competency seem to apply?

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

@Mike
Doesn’t seem like you listened to the intended audience about how to approach the intended audience.
That is indicative of intent and motive. I’m not sure how you think you’ll obtain a proper sample from an even population when you are filtering by selection through topic.

Here is a good example of how to approach this subject.
Why Smart Pilots Crash

Perhaps it needs pointing out: the researchers care about the audience and their receptiveness of the results.
That article is very effective because it addresses pilots for what they are.

Might take a lesson there…

Last Edited by AF at 22 Oct 20:05

Fuji_Abound wrote:

You will capture that as pilot error and report on the reasons given by the pilot.

That is assuming I do not question pilots about training. I do, and it is all part of the analysis.

It’s all very well picking a scenario and challenging a response, but what about those I have interviewed who were absolute professionals, fantastic flying record, instructors (some 15% of infringements are by instructors), had forgotten more about flying than I know and who are so far removed from the example you give that it is difficult to imagine. Why do they make mistakes? Generally speaking training goes to causation. If you are not taught to use a chart, if you are not taught navigation, if you have not been taught communication with ATC then those things are likely to cause an infringement, an accident, an incident or whatever. Error is about making slips and lapses. Errors are about having a plan that fails to achieve its intended outcome due to a failure to execute the plan or executing it incorrectly. In your example, the pilot has followed his plan and it is the wrong plan – a mistake (although we tend to use the words error and mistake interchangeably). In my example, the pilot follows his perfect plan but, because of something that may be distraction or something else, it goes wrong.

I am surprised that in your field the majority of errors do not involve some kind of human error. I have researched other safety critical industries such as commercial aviation, nuclear power and railway operations and they all seem to find that human error plays a part. But then all industries are different and I can imagine some, which do not necessarily rely on humans having to demonstrate skills, knowledge or decision-making abilities – all of which undeniably can involve human error – in this bracket.

Fuji_Abound wrote:
but the reasons for and the causes of distraction are well researched.

Oh dear, no they are not – in the GA context – unless you have found something that I haven’t in two years of looking. And why challenge me to produce new revelations? No-one can know what is to be discovered unless they ask the question and research the answer. I may not find anything new, but at least I will have made the effort to establish that as the case rather than making somewhat uninformed jibes about it.

I really don’t understand the negativity of people on here – and the wilful misunderstanding of what it is I am trying to do (your last para). Many people – elsewhere – applaud the effort to enhance aviation safety. Constructive comments are always welcome, but constantly banging on about how useless this all is, how everything to know is already known, that error has nothing to do with people coming unstuck and so on is really, to me, surprising in a pilot community.

Regards

Mike

United Kingdom

Thanks for answering Mike.

Given this is your own choice on what to research, perhaps it may be more useful to others to research some of the more pertinent points if ultimately wanting to see how to identify ways to increase safety reasonably.

I think Mike you are not aware of what the CAA has been doing over the last couple of years.

The two threads linked below under “Threads possibly related to this one” are worth a read, despite their length.

Then look at the behaviour of the persons mentioned there. Threats against pilots prominent on social media, dressed up as invitations for a chat at Gatwick. The guy doing this has just cancelled his FB account

A realist will probably say that airspace and the ATC system will never change. So pilots will continue to be persecuted with the current 2-stage (3-stage in the summer because they cannot pack enough into the Gasco “charity” pipeline) process whose last step is a license suspension.

Together with the CAIT software, this is like you having a 24/7 GPS linked transmitter on your car and the 3rd time you go 1mph over the limit you get banned.

Except what the CAA “team” (actually 1 or 2 people) has done is set up a punishment scheme corresponding to doing 100mph.

Hard to find much goodwill in that climate.

Especially as – to reiterate this yet again – minor infringements should be handled by the system, because they are random human errors.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Mike E – you have made some sound points and appear to now be revealing that you have considered some of the wider issues. That I am very pleased to see.

Please dont take exception to robust enquiry, some of it may be useful. It may seem negative, but surely far better to challenge the basis of your research, than not.

I wish you the best of luck and will be very interested to read the results of your research.

How, where and when will it be published?

Thank God (or those angels on the pin’s head), I have yet to infringe, but I would happily take part in your research if I had!

AF thank you for that link

Here is the NASA presentation the article discusses

https://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/flightcognition/article2.htm

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Canuck wrote:

But by lumping all (significant and insignificant) infringements into one bucket identified as ‘pilot error’ it is not possible to differentiate between significant and insignificant errors. I would have thought only significant errors would warrant further consideration (e.g. nobody wants to know why I spilled my soup, or nipped a corner of some airspace).

Oh dear. I am researching pilot error. I am not researching whether errors are significant or not because that is meaningless. How can a significant error be defined? By the outcome? So a pilot who drops his pen in the cockpit and pushes the stick forward while retrieving it and crashes makes a significant or insignificant error. A pilot who drops his pen in the cockpit and pushes the stick forward while retrieving it and infringes controlled airspace makes a significant or insignificant error? A pilot who drops his pen in the cockpit and pushes the stick forward while retrieving it and continues on his way without any further ado makes a significant or insignificant error?

And the classification of infringements as serious or otherwise, with which I am not concerned with in my research because I am researching pilot error, is a whole subject on its own.

Regards

Mike

United Kingdom

This is really a beautiful example of how academia so often misses the point. I spend a fair bit of paid time pulling PhDs back into realty, several work for me, but once you get out of industry and into academia the possibility of entirely missing dominant factors in favor of preconceived interests is huge… and large self-reinforcing groups are worse than individuals, particularly when aligning the research with those in power and providing the money reinforces the belief system.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 22 Oct 20:26
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