Authors

Sue Burdekin

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

City

Dayton

Abstract

The aim of the Mission Operations Safety Audit (MOSA) research is to validate behavioural self-reported data from professional pilots, so that management can have confidence in this safety-critical debriefing information, and feed it back into the training continuum. In doing so, a safety loop can be established in a cost effective, operationally specific and timely program of data collection. The first study was conducted in a military F/A-18 Hornet simulator. Pilots were asked to self-report on their own operational performance across a predetermined selection of behavioural categories designed in conjunction with subject matter experts. To further test the MOSA methodology, this time in-flight, a second study was carried out with the cooperation of a civil airline in Europe. Both the military and the civil airline studies found that professional pilots were able to effectively self-report on their own performance. However, the multi-crewed European airline pilots’ results revealed that first officers were more critical of their own performance. In order to determine whether national or organisational culture influenced these results, the MOSA methodology was recently tested in a regional airline operating Dash 8 aircraft between island destinations in the Indian Ocean. The results indicated that neither national culture nor aircraft operating culture appear to influence the accuracy of pilot self reports. However, the self reports from first officers do appear to be linked to their seniority and experience in that role.


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