ABSTRACT
With increasing awareness that the greater proportion of aviation accidents have human factor prime causes, the development of relevant aviation safety regulation would appear both essential The CAA (Safety Regulatory Group) Human Factors Unit is a specialist HF group which works in all aspects of aviation safety regulation, including air traffic services, maintenance, flight operations, licensing and airworthiness. Historically, safety regulation has been prescriptive and based upon the achievement of minimum standards. As aviation has developed, regulation has evolved in a reactive fashion, becoming complex and sometimes difficult to interpret. The results are a demonstrably safe industry with robust technical requirements. The remaining accidents however are seen by the FAA HF Team report to be due to ‘system problems, not just isolated human or machine errors.’ (FAA, 1996). Such problems do not respond easily to prescriptive regulation, requiring broad interdisciplinary consideration and action. The structure of aviation safety regulation concerning aircraft construction and operation is described, giving examples of human factor concerns to demonstrate the difficulty of providing appropriate high level requirements plus the necessary means of compliance.
