Originally Posted by
Jwscud
Since the high level of accidents in the 70s we have had:
- New generations of aircraft
- Better automation
- TCAS (which is generally there to protect from human error, but mainly ATC)
- GPWS/EGPWS
- The CRM revolution
As far as I'm aware without the ability to crunch MORs, NASA ASAPs, company safety reports &c we only really know that the accident rate has decreased, and that a number of high profile accidents have involved human failings.
I am interested in how one can ascribe a certain percentage of the accident rate reduction to different factors above and others I have not mentioned. I would welcome links to studies that attempt to do that.
Let us look at your list, which I fully agree with.
1. New generations of aircraft.
Things go wrong less often thus requiring less input from pilot to not crash.
=Less reliance on pilots being capable of dealing with emergencies.
2. Better automation.
=less reliance on pilots being capable of actually flying. (downside of reducing pilot capability!)
3.TCAS
Catches pilot/ATC errors and tells pilot what to do to solve problem.
=Less reliance on pilots being capable of spotting aircraft and avoiding.
4.GPWS/EGPWS
Catches pilot/ATC errors and tells pilot what to do to solve problem.
=Less reliance on pilots being capable of maintaining SA.
5.The CRM revolution
In large part, in reality, a lot of CRM is following SOPs. When you sift it down, SOPs are an attempt to automate humans. They are an attempt to minimise human creativity in how to accomplish the various tasks. As many scenarios as they can think of have a proscribed way of accomplishing them.
This has been very successful at helping teams to integrate and work well, but to pretend it is not another instance of automation is slightly fuzzy thinking.
=Less reliance on pilots being capable of coming up with best solution on their own under pressure.
The result of this is that I don't think we need to work out the percentages between these factors.
All your factors once rendered down are to do with higher automation and less reliance on human pilots being good at their job.
There is a lesson to take away from that.
Every instance of higher automation that I can think of has improved safety overall.
Why stop now?