ABSTRACT
Air Traffic Management has been a highly reliable system for some decades now. Despite its impressive safety record, studies have shown that many incidents still involve human error. As the air traffic system is being stretched to its capacity limits, safety challenges may increase in the near future. Furthermore, the introduction of new computerized and automated tools may affect the operating methods and coordination patterns of controllers and hence, may change the nature of errors and chances of recovery that have been reported in existing systems. Consequently, aviation organizations should learn from incidents in order to maintain high levels of safety, particularly now with the increasing complexity of operations. On an intuitive level, many people would feel confident in making judgments about the contribution of human error, especially after the recording of an adverse event. In hindsight, it may seem straightforward to attribute the cause of a problem to the active intervention of controllers.
