ABSTRACT
In 1990 the BBC produced a documentary in its Horizon series. Titled The Wrong Stuff, it was based on an analysis of human error in the cockpit of commercial aircraft. The programme pointed out that until fairly recently, American airlines had largely recruited their pilots from the US Air Force. The programme’s main hypothesis was that the individual characteristics that had made pilots most suitable for a single seat fighter aircraft – a rugged individualism known as ‘the right stuff’ – were the least suitable in the cockpit of a commercial aircraft where good teamwork among the crew of pilot, co-pilot and navigator, was more important. The right stuff was, in fact, the wrong stuff.
