COGNITIVE FAILURE ANALYSIS FOR AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION

The present studies were undertaken to investigate the applicability o f an information processing approach to human failure in the aircraft cockpit. Using data obtained from official aircraft accident investiga tion reports, a database of accidents and incidents involving New Zeal and civil aircraft between 1982 and 1991 was compiled. In the first st udy, reports were coded into one of three error stages proposed by Nag el (1988) and for the presence of any of 61 specific errors noted by G erbert and Kemmler (1986). The importance of decisional factors in fat al crashes was noted. Principal components analysis suggested the pres ence of five different varieties of human failure. In the second study , a more detailed error taxonomy derived from the work of Rasmussen (1 982) was applied to the data. Goal selection errors emerged as the mos t frequent kind of cognitive error in fatal accidents. Aircraft accide nt reports can be a useful source of information about cognitive failu res if probed with an appropriate, theoretically-based, analysis of in formation processing errors. Such an approach could provide the accide nt investigators with a useful tool, and lead to a more complete under standing of human error in aviation.