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Consider the pilot who must choose, for example, between turning back in the face of potentially bad weather (with the certainty of disappointing passengers and, perhaps, personal embarrassment), or continuing on (with the chance of getting through safely and on time but also with a chance of suffering a major disaster). The choice is clearly between two negatives: a sure loss against an uncertain possibility of a disaster. Research has found that people have a bias to favour the risky choice. Many, many pilots and passengers have died as a result of this bias (“press-on-itis”).
Interestingly, this risk-seeking tendency is reversed when the choice is framed as one between gains. Here the sure thing alternative is favoured.
The really important point is that if our pilot could have framed his choice differently as a choice between two gains (the certainty of saving lives by turning back versus the possibility of not disappointing the passengers by continuing), he/she would have been biased to make the wiser decision.
AssignTasks
Workload is shared amongst the crew by the assigning of tasks. It should not be forgotten that tasks may also be assigned to outside agencies (traffic information or diversion/holding of other aircraft by ATC).
Implement Decision
The Commander of the aircraft is responsible for supervising and monitoring the implementation of his/her decision.
Consequences
If the decision has been correct, the outcome of its implementation should be the Commander’s original objective. If not, then either the decision is incorrect or the situation has changed.
Review and Feedback
The situation is constantly changing in the air. Review of actions by the flight crew is fundamental and it should be ongoing. If the situation has changed, then the Commander should check whether the outcome of his/her decision is still valid - if it is no longer valid, the whole process starts again from the beginning. Thus the real situation is thereby continually monitored.
Standard Operating Procedures
Rule-based Behaviour is one of the things that makes aviation as safe as it is today. Wherever possible, laws, procedures, vital actions and checklists are produced for the crews to follow. This, in itself, reduces the amount of decision making that crews have to carry out.
Errors can occur at the interface between liveware and software as it is very easy for individuals to misinterpret the content of checklists, manuals, maps, charts and airport guides. In order to try to minimize these errors, Standard Operating Procedures have been introduced and, if strictly adhered to, should be successful in reducing the number of mistakes.
One disadvantage is, however, that SOPs cannot be published for every possible situation.
They are aimed at establishing a pattern of behaviour that becomes habitual. As most airlines employ the practice of standardizing equipment and procedures, it is possible for the operating habits learned on one aircraft mark or type, to be carried over to another.
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The standardization and training will allow routine tasks to be performed with less attention and effort. Design carry-over will also minimize confusion and reduce training time and costs.
SOPs should be shared by crew members and modified/updated to maintain synergy.
Errors, Sources and Limits in the Decision-making Process
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The Decision-making process is prone to human error and may be limited by outside factors.
Errors
•Confirmation Bias
See Chapter 8. The best method to avoid this error is to deliberately look for information that will falsify the hypothesis rather than confirm it.
•Probability
The pilot will be heavily influenced by the probability of an occurrence. For example a bang heard on take-off could be a tyre burst, a bird strike, or an engine failure. A burst tyre is the most probable cause of a loud noise at this stage. Thus pilots may automatically carry out the initial drills for that event.
•Saliency
People often tend to focus attention most heavily on those cues that are physically salient
(loud, bright, recent, centrally visible, easy to interpret). Thus vital non-salient information may be overlooked.
•Overconfidence
An overconfidence either of personal skill or decision-making ability has been the direct cause of many bad airborne decisions. A good aviator, however experienced, is the first to admit that there is always much to learn. Overconfidence breeds complacency. Hand-in- hand with complacency is the loss of motivation to practise or learn. Performance can only deteriorate. This is sometimes known as the “Deterioration Effect”. The higher accident rate for general aviation pilots with between 1 000 and 3 000 flying hours, compared with those less experienced, is often explained by this effect.
•Fatigue/Overload
Both fatigue and overload will seriously affect decision making.
•Denial
A common aspect of human attitude when exposed to risk is that of denial. This can typically manifest itself as one of the following behavioural patterns:
•Procrastination “I’ll continue to fly on for a little longer and then decide”.
•Rationalization “It’ll all work out just fine”.
•Hope and desires “It’s bound to clear on the other side of these hills”.
•Refusal to admit “It’s not like that and anyway it can’t happen to me”.
•Status and reputation “I’m just not going to be beaten”.
•Refusal to review “It worked last time in roughly the same situation”.
Each of the above examples is a form of denial. It is a refusal to accept, admit, confront, change or decide and has been the cause of many accidents. It is fundamental that, in order for a good decision to be reached, the REAL situation is analysed, confronted and assessed.
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Limitations
•Attention
Human attention is limited or may be “funnelled” (perhaps due to stress) and thus input of information may be significantly curtailed.
•Stress
As we have already seen, stress can have a dramatic effect on both the human body and mind. Decisions made under stress are rarely of high quality.
•Lack of experience
Lack of experience will certainly slow down the decision-making process since diagnosis of the true situation will be slower than that of a skilled or an experienced pilot who will be able to rapidly correlate information from a number of sources because of the typical pattern that has been observed in the past.
In the same way, extensive familiarity with patterns of symptoms produced by particular aircraft malfunctions will allow the experienced pilot to rapidly interpret the overall situation from a potentially large number of cues indicating their individual status.
Personality Traits and Effective Crew Decision Making
The most important personality trait for effective crew decision making is stability.
Judgement Concept
It can be summarized that judgement, risk assessment and the consequential decision made in the air is based upon the:
•Pilot
•Aircraft
•Environmental conditions
•Time available
Commitment
Commitment refers to the degree of commitment to a solution when making a decision and which represents the “point of no return”.
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