SITUATION AWARNESS

“The perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future”

DEFINITION

Pilot speaks:

• Perceiving the features of the environment

• Knowing what they mean to relative to the flight

• Projecting their status into the future.

FACTS :

Investigation into recent accident data shows :

• 80% of airline accidents are caused by human performance failures (Endsley 1998, NTSB 1994)

• 75% of those accidents can be attributed to poor or inaccurate situational awareness

THEN :

Increasingly, human factors researchers view situational awareness as the key to good aeronautical decision-making.

• All decision models for our profession have SA as a key component

• Good data = Good decision

• Bad data = Bad decision

LEVEL OF SITUATION AWARENESS

SA ERRORS

QUALITY of Situational Awareness

BEST

• All relevant cues noticed and assigned meaning

• The crew is confident all relevant cues

BETTER

• All relevant cues noticed—some are assigned meaning

• The crew is not sure they have correctly accounted for all cues

NOT SO GOOD

• Some relevant cues are missing

• The Crew is uncertain that all relevant cues have been accounted for

BAD

• Some relevant cues have been missed

• The crew thinks they have accounted for all

  relevant cues

LOSS of Situational Awareness

MAINTAINING Situational Awareness