Application of HFACS to the Nighttime Aviation Accidents and Incidents

Abstract

Commercial aviation accidents and incidents more prevalent at the certain times of the day. Operational problems (e.g., night vision, flash blindness, black hole illusion, and reflection) faced by pilots while performing nighttime flights pose threats to flight safety. The present paper aims to examine the contributing factors to commercial aviation accidents occurred at night. In this paper, accident reports of 30 commercial airplane crashes occurred over the past five years were analyzed. The contributing factors of those accidents were examined by using HFACS (Human Factors Analysis and Classification System). The relative importance of the causal factors was determined. Literature reviews have indicated that no study has examined the causality of nighttime commercial aircraft accidents by using HFACS as a framework. It was found that physical environment was the most significant causal factor. Skill-based errors were second-highest contributing factors. Perceptual errors and decision errors were ranked as third-highest causal factors. We believe that our results may be useful for reducing the chances of human error and raising safety standards of commercial airline operations.