Research Shows Teamwork in the Cockpit Key Indicator in Aviation Accidents

San Francisco, CA, July 12, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Three decades of research support NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman’s comments yesterday on the role of teamwork in the cockpit and its impact on aviation accidents.

Ron Warren, behavioral psychologist, researcher, and LMAP founder, has worked with flight crews from UPS Air Group and British Airways on Crew Resource Management (CRM) training, the programs that address the teamwork issues that underlie human error in aviation, medical or large industrial accidents.

“We’ve found that natural preferences toward confrontation and other personality traits greatly impact effectiveness in the cockpit, and thus, outcomes in crisis situations,” said Warren. “Our research shows that decision-making and teamwork skills can be learned. A pilot who is more opinionated and controlling can work to more effectively listen and process concerns raised by others. Likewise, deferential crew members who avoid conflict must learn that it is their professional obligation to be more assertive.”

“Some in the field believe that the 71% decrease in aviation accidents in the last decade are due to the FAA requiring the airlines provide Crew Resource Management training every 18 months,” Warren added.

NTSB Chairman Hersman agreed: “Often in our investigations when there are multiple people in a locomotive cab or an aviation cockpit it is about how the crew works together. It is not just their experience level because when you look at (these pilots’) records, these are very experienced pilots,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We want to make sure we understand what is happening in the cockpit, how they are communicating and how they are coordinating and how they are working together,” she continued. “When we talk about crew resource management, one of the tenets of (CRM) is making sure that a junior pilot feels comfortable challenging a senior pilot and that that senior pilot welcomes input in his cockpit and that they work together and that they are seen as a team. And that they have divided up responsibilities in the cockpit, that there is a pilot flying and a pilot monitoring.”

While investigating the cause of the Asiana 214 accident last Saturday, Hersman’s team will likely consider teamwork and communication factors, as well as cultural preferences that were centrally implicated in a series of accidents with Korea’s other major carrier, Korean Air. Research at Korean Air showed that training programs could effectively address issues of deference—such as the challenging of a senior pilot by a more junior pilot, as indicated by Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-00/01, by Ute Fischer and Judity Orasnu in Cultural Diversity and Crew Communication presented at 50th Astronautical Congress, Amsterdam October 1999 and by Malcolm Gladwell in The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, in Outliers, 2008.

In addition to safety-related issues in aviation, LMAP works with over twenty healthcare systems in the US and executives and managers from diverse industries around the world to improve leadership and management performance. More information about the LMAP tools and services can be found at www.lmapinc.com.