Mechanisms in the Chain of Safety: Research and Operational Experiences in Aviation Psychology

How should we organize our selection or training procedures? In what way can a flight crew mediate problems? How are we to understand reported errors? Mechanisms in the Chain of Safety presents recent findings in aviation psychology, bringing fresh insights to such questions. Aviation psychologists study personnel selection and training; they evaluate the management of flight operations, and ultimately they analyse the things that went wrong. The strong interrelation between these components allows us to talk about a chain of safety. This volume appraises this chain of safety by considering the mechanisms that determine its effectiveness - input mechanisms, coping mechanisms and control mechanisms. Each contribution discusses a component of the chain while the book as a whole emphasizes and illustrates that understanding the connections between these parts is essential for the future. By addressing these issues the book leads to further considerations such as how mistakes are linked to training and how coping mechanisms should help us to understand errors and accidents. Mechanisms in the Chain of Safety will appeal to aviation professionals (human factors experts, safety managers, pilots, ATCOs, air navigation service providers, etc.) and academics, researchers, graduates and postgraduates in human factors and psychology. Although primarily written for the aviation industry, this book will also be of interest to other high-risk dynamic activities that face similar challenges: the need to present effective and safe outcomes to the public in general and the stakeholders in particular.

Alex de Voogt has a Master’s in Linguistics (Leiden University, 1992), an MBA (Rotterdam School of Management, 1998) and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology (Leiden University, 1995). He is affiliated with the Work & Organizational Psychology Programme at Maastricht University and works as an Assistant Curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Alex de Voogt has a commercial pilot license for helicopters and was responsible for the acquisition and development of a helicopter simulator at Maastricht University. He has been a Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society since 2007. Teresa C. D’Oliveira has a first degree in Applied Psychology - Social and Organizational Psychology (Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, 1992), a Masters in Organizational Behavior (Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, 1995) and a PhD in Applied Psychology (Cranfield University, England, 2000). Dr. D’Oliveira is an Assistant Professor at ISPA-Institute Universitario where she is the Scientific Coordinator for the Organizational Psychology domain and where she lectures in Organizational Psychology and Human Factors. She was a board member of the European Association for Aviation Psychology (EAAP) where she was responsible for research and development activities in the field. Dr. D’Oliveira was involved in the organization and scientific committees of the 2004, 2006 and 2008 EAAP conferences.