The Challenge of Aviation Emergency and Abnormal Situations

Burian, B. K., Barshi, I., & Dismukes, R. K.. (2005). The challenges of aviation emergency and abnormal situations (NASA Technical Memorandum 213462). Moffett Field, CA: NASA Ames Research Center.

Case 1: The long flight had been uneventful until the aircraft was 240 miles from its destination—then everything seemed to go wrong at once. A small fire in the front galley could not be extinguished. Thick, black smoke billowed everywhere. Electrical systems began to fail and the glass cockpit displays flickered off and on randomly for over two minutes before going completely black. Despite the reduced visibility in the cockpit and the loss of the displays and systems, the crew completed a successful emergency landing and all passengers were evacuated without injury.

Case 2: The aircraft had just leveled off at its cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. when the master caution lit up. The first officer canceled the warning, scanned the overhead panel, and said, “We have a bleed failure.” The captain told him to pull out the quick reference handbook and run the checklist. The first officer did so and the flight proceeded uneventfully.

Emergency and abnormal situations such as these occur aboard aircraft every day. They range from life-threatening and highly time-critical to mundane and relatively trivial. Crew responses to some situations are highly practiced during training. Other situations have never been practiced; they are so novel and unanticipated that no procedures have been developed to guide crews’ responses. Fortunately, emergency and abnormal situations aboard aircraft rarely result in accidents. Yet even when the aircraft lands safely, shortcomings are often evident in checklists, procedures, training, crew coordination and response, and the way the situations are managed; these shortcomings decrease the margin of safety.

What influences the manner in which an emergency or abnormal situation will be handled? The procedures and checklists crews use to respond to the situation are obviously central factors, but to answer this question fully, pertinent issues within six, inter-related areas must first be examined:

1. specific aspects of emergency or abnormal situations,
2. training for emergency and abnormal situations,
3. economic and regulatory pressures in aviation,
4. human performance capabilities and limitations under high workload and stress,
5. aircraft systems and automation, and
6. philosophies and policies within the aviation industry

A recent NASA report authored by Barbara Burian, Immanuel Barshi, and Key Dismukes reviews the relevant issues in these areas, and discusses how these issues relate to the design and development of procedures and checklists and ultimately to crew response, coordination, and management of emergency and abnormal situations in aviation. This report, entitled “The Challenge of Aviation Emergency and Abnormal Situations” can be found at http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/eas/download/BurianTM_final.pdf. This paper was written as part of the project on Emergency and Abnormal Situations, described at: http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/eas . An abbreviated version of the paper was also published in the Number 6, 2005 edition of the ICAO Journal.
 

** Questions/Comments?? **

If you have any Questions or Comments regarding this Article, send us your Comments.