Situational awareness was cited more often than any other human factor in a study of accidents and serious incidents involving helicopter air ambulance (HAA) flights, according to a report by U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) researchers.1
The study by the FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, dated November 2024 and released in January, examined 155 reports from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) on events that occurred from 2013 through 2023. The researchers began the study by coding those reports — 102 from ASRS, the voluntary safety reporting system; 53 NTSB final accident reports, and three NTSB final serious incident reports — for human factors and organizational risk factors.
The subsequent analysis identified human factors risks related to situational awareness, judgment and decision-making, adherence to procedures, and e…
