Ian W,
, but I remain open minded;
“… surprise, once happened it will not happen again. Even though this is qualified by “
… and the response corrected”.
How can we be sure that the response has been corrected (learnt), and even if learnt will it be used in a future event.
“By its very nature, 'Surprise' leads to indeterminate responses from the human …”
There is an interesting study on
Sim Stall Models, which concludes that surprise can be generated in simulation. However, it interesting that many of the pilots who suffered surprise were already trained in stall recover and may have experienced some of the evaluations previously; also, they were briefed that the training (evaluation) exercise was stalling, … and yet they were still surprised. What surprised them; the situation which led to the stall, the severity of the simulation, or the complexity of recovery – and consider the number of pilots did not recover according to the book.
Surprise depends on context, the situation and all those aspects which affect the human assessment and understanding of the situation at that time – same technical failure, different situation, … surprise!
Pilots might be taught to tolerate or mitigate surprise; how, and without assurance of success.
Pilots could be protected from ‘surprising’ situations; how and in what range of circumstances.
Perhaps aspects of both, training (experience) and protection, but even then the risks are only minimised.
It’s time to look beyond the human and automation in isolation, look at the total operating system and how it functions. Consider the operational processes, revisit the assumptions about humans and automation and compare these with the desired level of risk (safety is what is done to contain risk).