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This paper describes a human factors (HF) study of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)accidents. This study is significant because it contributes to understanding the complex human-machine environment. This study utilized the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to classify the kinds of human factors errors involved in a particular subset of UAS accidents. The study researcher presented four UAS accident reports to a group of diversely experienced pilots. Each of these four accidents involved the same make and similar models of UAS. These UAS models are acutely prone to humanmachine interactive failures because their designs are distinctly different than are normally present in human-occupied aircraft. The researcher then subjected the HFACS analyses results to a safety risk analysis involving several qualitative analytical methods. The study results showed that 8 of the 19 (42%) HFACS categories overwhelmingly contributed to 77% of the total risk in the aggregate of the four UAS accidents under study, while another 6 of the 19 (32%) HFACS categories contributed to less than 5% of the total risk.

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Operational safety is a mandatory tangible and intangible element in the commercial airline industry. Air carriers must not only have a demonstrable safety record, they must also create a passenger feeling of being safe. Industry safety requires a multi-layered approach to identifying hazards and mitigating the associated risks. In order to emphasize this imperative, Congress requires operators that hold an air carrier certificate operate with the highest degree of safety. To ensure compliance, Congress promulgated Title 49 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § 44702 that requires that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator to"…consider the duty of an air carrier to provide service with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest…" (Title 49-TRANSPORTATION, Sec. 44702-Issuance of certificates, 2006, p. 907) prior to the issuance of an air carrier certificate. In order to assure the highest level of safety in the air carrier industry, the FAA promulgated 14 CFR part 5 in 2015 that outlined, among other things, the four components of a Safety Management System (SMS) (FAA, 2020a). The FAA issued this regulation as a member state of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to comply with directives embodied in Annex 19, Safety Management (ICAO, 2013). Additionally, the FAA revised its national policy regarding operator SMS on June 24, 2020 when it issued FAA Order 8000.369C (FAA, 2020b). This latest update emphasized the importance of SMS to industry safety, and it reinforced the "continuous improvement" (FAA, 2020b) of the four elements of the SMS: Safety Policy, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion. The purpose of the Congressional approach to statutorily reinforce the philosophy of safety is multi-faceted. It requires operators to be accountable to passengers, employees, regulators, and to managers for the health and well being of the enterprise. The application of the SMS components is a structured method to protect assets, both human and materiel. Through the SMS decision process, financial asset allocation decisions are made in an efficient manner to apportion assets where safety and operational issues are shown to have the highest risk. Pareto, the Italian economist, analyzed the 80/20 phenomenon correctly when he determined that funds allocated to mitigate 20% of the hazards resulted in an 80% reduction in risk (Duszynski, 2020). Common Definitions The common definitions used in the SMS programs are listed in Table 1.

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