ABSTRACT
Commercial Aviation Safety Strategy Team's (CASST) approach is supported by the Federal Aviation Administration, which also has its own separate and somewhat different safety agenda. A CASST task force is looking at potential human factors errors in maintenance procedures, resource management programs in maintenance, and such maintenance issues as uncontained engine failures. The critical human beings are mostly cockpit crews but in some cases are air traffic controllers. Perhaps too narrowly, in 1974 much informed opinion centered upon the need for more and better ground-based aids without giving equal consideration to internal cockpit procedures. The latest Ground Proximity Warning Systems (GPWS) warning tells the cockpit crew that it has made an operational error, tells the crew what the problem is and that the airplane is either laterally or vertically not where it should be. A major expedited development following the Cali crash led to further refinement of the original GPWS concept and into the new Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems.
