The link between safety attitudes and observed performance in flight operations

The present study explores the relationship between self reported perceptions of airline organizational culture variables, and pilot performance during regularly scheduled passenger flights. Organizational culture variables were investigated by examining two subcomponents of organizational culture, job attitudes (morale and job satisfaction) and safety culture. These variables were part of the Flight Management Attitudes Short Survey, which was administered to crews during a Line Operational Safety Audit (LOSA: Helnu'eich, Klinect & Wilhelm, in press). The same crews were observed by trained and calibrated (to.80 or higher) expert observers who collected data on pilot behavior and threat and error management during the flight. Both job attitudes and perceptions of safety culture are related to behavior in the cockpit, but safety culture demonstrated stronger relationships than job attitudes. Crews composed of pilots with positive perceptions of safety culture trapped more errors, had fewer undesired aircraft states, had fewer error chains, made fewer violations. and had better overall crew performance ratings than crews with negative perceptions of safety culture (the differences between those with positive and negative attitudes were generally a standard deviation or more). The same pattern of results was found for crews with positive job attitudes versus crews with negative attitudes.

Duke Scholars

Author John Bryan Sexton Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Adult Psychiatry & Psychol ...