seamless and integrated with all line and training events. Within some airlines, CRM training is evaluated in the classroom with exercises and lectures involving both flight crew and cabin crew participating in realistic line-oriented scenarios. CRM skills are assessed in flight simulators using behavioural markers (Mavin & Murray, 2010). The CRM paradigm is now accepted as a required set of skills that all pilots need, together with handing skills, flying on instruments, and weather radar operations (Comerford et al., 2013). CRM appears to be effective in improving the interpersonal cockpit environment, and CRM training has become mandatory within commercial aviation.
Chapter 2: The Emergence of CRM & LOSA
As CRM evolved for MCO, researchers began to consider the applicability of the paradigm for SPO. An area of the industry often piloted by the least experienced pilots, SPO face some of the highest risks and are most susceptible to accidents. As the industry recognised this shortfall, Kearns (2011) proposed the need for CRM concepts to be taught to SPO.
This thesis recognises the need for CRM and HF concepts to be made transferrable and utilised in the SPO environment in an effort to reduce the accident rate in this category of aviation.
2.6.1 Single-pilot Operations (SPO)
As CRM is dependent on cross-talk between pilots, it might appear unlikely that CRM could be applied to SPO. However, SPO pilots must communicate with other professionals, including ATC, ground school, and other crew, such as emergency medical teams, for example. CRM calls for the use of all available resources,, including both those internal and external to the aircraft (e.g., dispatch, ATC, NWS, flight automation). Therefore, Comerford et al. (2013) argued that CRM could apply to SPOs.
Within SPO, CRM concepts can be split into two main areas of pilot duties and responsibilities: those that involve technology in a general area of machine interface tasks (e.g., flight control, navigation, planning) and cognitive and interpersonal/ cognitive functions (e.g., decision making, communication, monitoring). Together, these characteristics could be added to the diagram above as a final box entitled Pilot Duties, Responsibilities and Tasks. In this way, SPO could retain the safety benefits derived from CRM whilst using CRM concepts to define the duties and
still a team involved in an SPO operation. All team members must be aware of their responsibilities to the pilot and within the SPO team. The pilot is then tasked with adequately coordinating with all available resources to produce decisions that are comparably sound to those made in multi-crew environments in order to function at an equally high level of performance and safety.
2.6.2 TEM for SPO
Threat and error management is a relatively new development in the CRM suite of skills, but it is proving to work well operationally. Aviation is an environment filled with threats, and SPO are not exempt from these. Threat management in SPO, as in the rest of aviation, aims to identify the potential threats to an operation and to manage them so that they do not impact negatively on the flight. Equally, errors are likely in any environment, but single pilots lack the support of another crew member in the cockpit to spot and help mitigate against errors. Although commonality can be found between single-pilot and multi-crew operators, the threats and errors will be different in each of these contexts, and therefore different threat and error
management strategies need to be adopted.
There is little research on the applicability of CRM or TEM to SPO, yet ICAO mandated TEM in pilot licensing standards in 2007 (ICAO, 2007). Regulators in NZ and in Australia followed the lead of ICAO, and in 2007 the Guild of Air Pilot and Air Navigators (GAPAN), now the Honourary Company of Air Pilots, conducted a series of training courses followed by two surveys in order to provide guidance to smaller operators. Following these courses, a post-training survey found that 23% of participants had no prior knowledge of TEM but believed that it would improve
Chapter 2: The Emergence of CRM & LOSA
safety. The challenges of implementation were identified as lack of spare time and a resistance to change (ATSB, 2009).
In order to meet the ICAO requirements, CASA produced an advisory publication for teaching and assessing Single Pilot Human Factors and TEM (CASA, CAAP, 5,59-1). Similar guidance appeared in New Zealand, including articles published in the regulator Vector Magazine (CAA Vector, 2010). Other operators looked to implement a form of TEM that included helicopters and gliding fraternities. The European Helicopter Safety Implementation Team (EHSIT, 2010) developed a training leaflet for helicopter TEM following a recommendation after an analysis of certain accidents, and Gatling (2010, p. 17) produced a resource on threat and error management for Gliding NZ membership.
However, four years after CASA mandated TEM training in general aviation, a survey conducted by Lee, Bates, Murray, and Martin (2016) had disappointing results. Contrary to the results of the survey conducted following the GAPAN training, in which 90% of participants thought TEM would improve safety, only 50% of the 2011 survey pilots thought that the introduction of TEM had reduced incidents or accidents. Furthermore, there was variation in the adoption of TEM principles and differing opinions as to its effectiveness (Lee et al., 2016). This finding is unsurprising considering that, amongst the pilots surveyed, there is confusion as to the course content, and considerable variability in guidance, support demonstrated by
management and time devoted to training and understanding the concept of TEM.
Pilots in the second survey often raised questions about where they should concentrate their efforts and how their efforts would be demonstrated. There is one methodology that provides answers to these questions: LOSA. TEM forms the framework for LOSA and involves observing how flight crew identify and mitigate
against threats and errors during normal flights. The LOSA methodology developed out of a need to determine how threats and errors are managed during flights and how well CRM training translates into line operations. This required collecting field data, which in turn required a theoretical framework that couched error management performance in relation to its operating environment.
Because it was developed for MCO, it was unclear whether LOSA methodology could be adapted for SPO due to the data stream that comes from cross-talk between flight crew. However, if it could be adapted in some way, it may result in the
improvement of pilot performance and a decrease in accidents amongst SPO. Translating this framework to the SPO context was the foundation of this thesis.