ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on managing critical incident stress in aviation industry employees. People who live at great distances from appalling natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis may experience emotional distress and great sympathy for the victims. Aviation disasters, on the other hand, may trigger, at least initially, intense levels of stress and alarm that later turn into anger and rage against the builders, operators, employees and agencies that control aviation. An air disaster can throw people in the aviation industry into a state of emotional crisis. Crisis intervention is primarily helpful in the most acute phases of a state of emotional turmoil. Critical incident stress management (CISM) is a package of numerous crisis intervention techniques that are blended and interrelated. Assessment, strategic planning, large group interventions, individual crisis intervention and advice to management are typical during an event. Most major airlines and a growing number of air traffic control organizations have CISM or critical incident response programs (CIRP).
