Human Systems Integration Division researchers contributed to an effort, led by Jon Holbrook at NASA Langley Research Center, to investigate how pilots contribute to safe commercial aviation operations. Analysis of aviation accident data suggests that human error is implicated in up to 80% of accidents, a statistic which has been used to justify future visions for aviation in which the roles of human operators are greatly diminished or eliminated in the interest of creating a safer aviation system. However, failure to fully consider the human contributions to successful system performance in civil aviation represents a significant and largely unrecognized risk when making policy decisions about human roles and responsibilities. Opportunities exist to increase our understanding of human contributions to "things going right" in commercial aviation. The principal focus of this assessment was to identify current gaps and explore methods for identifying human “success” data generated by the aviation system, from personnel and within the supporting infrastructure.
Additional information and a PDF download can be found at the following link.
https://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/awards_pubs/publication_view.php?publication_id=2785.
These efforts were also highlighted in a recent Forbes article titled "New NASA Research Explores Contribution Of Pilots To Aviation Safety".
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristykiernan/2019/11/14/new-nasa-research-explores-contribution-of-pilots-to-aviation-safety/#30ab3a002ac3
