En route operational errors : transfer of postion responsibility as a function of time on position /

"Operational Errors (OEs) can occur anytime while a controller is on position. However, the historical trend has been that a higher percentage of OEs occur early on position and then tapers off as on-position time increases. This trend has been consistently observed across the different air traffic...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Bailey, Larry
Corporate Authors:	Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, United States. Office of Aerospace Medicine, United States. Federal Aviation Administration
Other Authors:	Pounds, Julia, Scarborough, Alfretia
Format:	Government Document Book
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, D.C. : Ft. Belvior, VA : Springfield, Va. : Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Aerospace Medicine ; Available to the public through the Defense Technical Information Center ; Available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, 2008.
Subjects:	Air traffic control > United States > Safety measures. Air traffic controllers > Accidents > Prevention. Air traffic controllers > Decision making. Aircraft accidents > Human factors > United States. Aviation medicine > United States. Air traffic control > Safety measures. Air traffic control. Air traffic controllers. Accidents > Prevention. Aircraft accidents > Human factors. Aircraft accidents. Aviation medicine. United States.
Online Access:	Online Access
Summary:	"Operational Errors (OEs) can occur anytime while a controller is on position. However, the historical trend has been that a higher percentage of OEs occur early on position and then tapers off as on-position time increases. This trend has been consistently observed across the different air traffic options and time of day. Past efforts at reducing OEs that occur early on position have focused on improvements associated with the position relief briefing. Despite these efforts, nothing has been able to reverse the trend in OEs. We conducted a retrospective analysis of enroute OEs to determine if there were human factors considerations unrelated to the position relief briefing checklist that may explain why OEs occur early following a position transfer. Our results suggest that position transfers differ by type (replacement vs. providing workload reduction) and the amount of time available (time pressure vs. no pressure). Moreover, the human factors considerations differ between the type of transfer and the amount of available time. Although the position relief briefing checklist is well grounded in human factors principles, the checklist itself is insufficient for assessing the various states of mind a controller is operating under immediately following a position transfer."--P.i.