Human factors — more specifically, in most cases, errors in decision-making — were the primary cause of every reported case of vehicular or personal deviations (V/PDs) at U.S. airports over a recent two-year period, according to a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.1
A report on the study, released in early November, said researchers analyzed the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Runway Safety Office’s runway incursion database for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 and examined the records of the 847 V/PDs that were reported to the FAA and investigated by the airports where the events occurred. The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was used to evaluate the narrative for each event investigation.
“[T]he analysis revealed that every event examined had a human-factor cause that led to the V/PD,” the report said. “Following the HFACS methodology, a V/PD is classified as an ‘unsafe…
