Welcome to the Initial Safety and Human Factors Training course. Before we can discuss human error, we must establish what we mean by “safety.” In aviation, absolute safety—or zero risk—is an impossibility. Instead, safety is defined as the state in which risks associated with aviation activities are continuously reduced and controlled to an acceptable level. To achieve this, EASA mandates that your organisation operates a formal Safety Management System, or SMS.

An SMS is a formal, systematic approach to managing safety. It provides the necessary organisational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures to keep our operations secure. Under the ICAO and EASA framework, every SMS is built upon four foundational pillars: Safety Policy and Objectives, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion. This course sits firmly within Safety Promotion, ensuring that you are trained and competent to perform your SMS duties.

Why is Human Factors integrated directly into our Safety Management System? Because the human element is the most flexible, adaptable, and valuable part of the aviation system, but it is also the most vulnerable to influences which can adversely affect its performance. We cannot redesign the human being to be one hundred percent reliable; we have to accept the fact that the human being is intrinsically fallible.

The data supports this reality. According to historical aviation safety statistics, between 70 and 80 percent of all aircraft accidents are driven by human factors. More importantly, maintenance and planning errors are increasingly identified as primary or contributing causes. Therefore, contemporary safety thinking dictates that human error should be the starting point, rather than the stop-rule, in accident investigation and prevention.

History repeatedly proves what happens when safety systems fail to account for human limitations. In 1988, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 suffered an explosive decompression due to undetected fatigue cracking. In 1990, a BAC 1-11 experienced a fatal windscreen blowout because a fatigued shift manager, under perceived time pressure, used the wrong bolts. These were not malicious acts; they were systemic failures of highly trained professionals operating in vulnerable environments.

Our goal in this course is not to eliminate human error entirely, which is impossible. Instead, our goal is to understand our biological limitations, recognize hazardous environments, and actively utilize our Safety Management System to capture these errors before the aircraft leaves the ground. Let’s get started.