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Towards a Useful Human Factors Program

Your article in the May 2006 edition of Aviation Maintenance announces that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is making available a calendar for 2007 that features the "Dirty Dozen" human factors in maintenance. As a manager of human factors for technical operations, I jumped on your suggestion and ordered 500 pocket calendars from our local FAA office. They were delivered within a few days, and the quality and durability are excellent. The station Human Factors Working Group delegates will distribute the calendars in December to their technicians.

We can't be reminded often enough that human error is not the cause of the accident or incident. The cause is whatever interfered with the technician at the time he/she was working on the aircraft or component. Each day one or more of the "dirty dozen" will interfere with your daily activity. Every month the calendar highlights a different Dirty Dozen theme, i.e. Distraction, Fatigue, Complacency, along with excellent strategies (safety nets) to be in place as defensive layers. I applaud the FAA for developing the pocket calendar.

I refer frequently to Chapter 1 of The Operator's Manual for Human Factors in Aviation Maintenance that you discuss in your article (see AM, May, p. 6). It is dedicated to why event investigation is important, how to implement an event investigation process and how to know it's working. I encourage anyone involved in human factors to check out the document at www.hf/faa.gov/opsmanual/nav.aspx.

Roger Hughes
JetBlue Airways

More on Human Factors

The aviation industry is going through some demanding changes that are made from good and bad business decisions. These changes never have a positive effect on our family life and career choices. Many times these changes require relocation, and most of us resist starting over in a new town. A lot of times these changes require salary decreases, and no one likes to take less money. Sometimes these changes end up in unemployment, and critical career choices have to be made.

Airline management is making necessary operational changes because of increasing costs. They are reducing flights in an attempt to maximize load factors. Corporate flight departments are changing the way they do business. They are making positive changes to shareholder value for their company. However, these changes can have negative effects on all of us if investor confidence diminishes.

Even though these changes may have a positive effect for these companies, they never seem to have a positive effect for those of us that remain in aircraft maintenance. However we still maintain our integrity through our certificates and remain current. We do not compromise safety and workmanship. We remain quality conscious because we know some decisions and changes are positive for everyone.

It is during these times we should know how to use human factors in our jobs and combat bad decisions. We can still use good human factors, policies, regulations and laws to combat the change from bad decisions. I am learning that our voices count and we are heard. Let your congressmen and senators know, so they nominate policy makers into the Department of Transportation and FAA that understand how these bad decisions are affecting our industry.

Mark Weiler
Accident Safety Counselor, FAA Cincinnati, Ohio