ABSTRACT
Human error falls into several areas of responsibility, such that it is rarely possible to say with any certainty that the reason for an error was definitively the design, commercial pressures, interactions with external parties and systems, or failures in individual or team performance. The automation on aircraft flight deck systems, and in other areas of aviation such as ATQ, has grown enormously. The human pilot not only interfaces with these various parts of the aviation system himself, but actually forms the interface that connects these areas to each other, through him. In 1994 the UK Civil Aviation Authority decided to recruit a human factors specialist to draft some new ‘human factors’ requirements for flight deck certification. Good ‘human factors’ qualities in flight deck design depend upon properly planned and conducted activities during the design process. Regulatory action on the human factors aspects of flight deck automation has been driven by several basic factors.
