Modeling Human Error in a Real-World Teamwork Environment

An initial model of human error in a real-world teamwork environment has been developed. The captain and first officer of a commercial aircraft and the air traffic controllers with whom they interact are modeled as the crew executes an approach and landing followed by taxi operations that take them to their assigned gate. Scenario details and human model development were based on the results of a series of full-task simulation experiments using commercial pilots as subjects. The focus of the experiment was on errors committed by the aircrews during taxi operations. The models developed exhibit the robust behaviors typically exhibited by aircrews and identify psychologically grounded windows for error within that robust behavior. Human Error Modeling Applied to Taxi