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Gliding an Airbus A320 - Simplicity-Complexity Trade-Off

Mandu, Cristian LU (2021) FLMU16 20211
Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
Abstract
In the unlikely critical event of an Airbus A320 aeroplane suffering an all engines failure at cruising altitude, would the pilots be able to follow procedures and land safely on a reachable runway? Nine out of twelve simulations done during this research resulted in a crash when the pilots used only the Airbus procedures. Can the pilots make a safe landing on a runway after being taught and having practised judgment heuristics in addition to the manufacturer procedures? According to the sampled results in this research, they can. All of them.

This research proposes an experimental comparative simulation design, drawing upon the Cognitive Systems Engineering approach, exploring the contribution of judgment heuristics – as a feedforward... (More)
In the unlikely critical event of an Airbus A320 aeroplane suffering an all engines failure at cruising altitude, would the pilots be able to follow procedures and land safely on a reachable runway? Nine out of twelve simulations done during this research resulted in a crash when the pilots used only the Airbus procedures. Can the pilots make a safe landing on a runway after being taught and having practised judgment heuristics in addition to the manufacturer procedures? According to the sampled results in this research, they can. All of them.

This research proposes an experimental comparative simulation design, drawing upon the Cognitive Systems Engineering approach, exploring the contribution of judgment heuristics – as a feedforward artefact addition to the manufacturer procedure – to manage the situation. The results point to a significant benefit of adding judgment heuristics to the pilots’ ‘toolbox’. The conclusion proposes further research to explore the potential benefits of training pilots the use of judgment heuristics for other critical situations as part of the airline pilot training syllabus. It also suggests a re-design of the Airbus A320 ALL ENGINES FAIL procedure. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Mandu, Cristian LU
supervisor
organization
course
FLMU16 20211
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Aviation, Crew Resource Management, Workload, Situational Awareness, Decision Making, QRH procedure, Judgment Heuristics, Joint Cognitive Systems, FLMU06
language
English
id
9062511
date added to LUP
2021-08-16 09:07:14
date last changed
2021-08-16 09:07:14
@misc{9062511,
  abstract     = {{In the unlikely critical event of an Airbus A320 aeroplane suffering an all engines failure at cruising altitude, would the pilots be able to follow procedures and land safely on a reachable runway? Nine out of twelve simulations done during this research resulted in a crash when the pilots used only the Airbus procedures. Can the pilots make a safe landing on a runway after being taught and having practised judgment heuristics in addition to the manufacturer procedures? According to the sampled results in this research, they can. All of them.

This research proposes an experimental comparative simulation design, drawing upon the Cognitive Systems Engineering approach, exploring the contribution of judgment heuristics – as a feedforward artefact addition to the manufacturer procedure – to manage the situation. The results point to a significant benefit of adding judgment heuristics to the pilots’ ‘toolbox’. The conclusion proposes further research to explore the potential benefits of training pilots the use of judgment heuristics for other critical situations as part of the airline pilot training syllabus. It also suggests a re-design of the Airbus A320 ALL ENGINES FAIL procedure.}},
  author       = {{Mandu, Cristian}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Gliding an Airbus A320 - Simplicity-Complexity Trade-Off}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}