Pilot decision‐making during a dual engine failure on take‐off: Insights from three different decision‐making models

Abstract

Commercial airline pilots are required to make efficient, justifiable, and safety-critical decisions when faced with adverse events such as engine failures. Although these are rare events, the consequences are severe, and the pilot response is critical. This paper reviews pilot decision-making when faced with a dual engine failure on takeoff using three different decision models; the Recognition Primed Decision Model, Decision Ladders and the Perceptual Cycle Model. In-depth interviews with eight experienced airline pilots were conducted to capture their decision-making processes in response to a dual engine failure on take-off event. The analysis of these interviews using the three different decision models provide recommendations for a proposed decision assistant. The different decision models are discussed in relation to the insight they can bring to developing a future decision assistant tool within the flight deck of commercial aircraft.

Understanding human decision-making when controlling UAVs in a search and rescue application

“…The NDM approach gave rise to numerous decision-making models although the debate over the optimal model is ongoing (Lipshitz, 1993;Lintern, 2010). Interestingly, only a subset of models have been applied to sociotechnical systems (e.g., Parnell et al, 2021b;Parnell et al, 2021a;Plant and Stanton, 2012;Banks et al, 2018). These models include the Recognition Primed Decision Model (RPDM; Klein et al, 1989) and the Perceptual Cycle Model (PCM; Neisser, 1976).…”

“…This means that dynamic changes within the environment, which may present new information to the decision-maker, are not represented in the decision-making process despite being a defining factor of naturalistic environments (Orasanu and Connolly, 1993). While this model may suit environments where dynamic change is less important for decision-making processes, the PCM may be more appropriate when changing environmental information is central for guiding decision-making (Banks et al, 2021;Parnell et al, 2021b).…”

“…Therefore, the entirety of the decisionmaking process within the sociotechnical system is represented (Rasmussen, 1974;Banks et al, 2020;McIlroy and Stanton, 2011). The decision ladder is also theoretically underpinned by Rasmussen's 1983 skill-, rule-, and knowledge-based framework to identify where knowledge-based activities could be supported by improvements to a system's design, such as automated decision aids (Banks et al, 2020;Parnell et al, 2021b).…”

“…The psychological processes that occur 'in the head' of the sensor operator when monitoring UAV sensor output (Parnell et al, 2021b). Technical processes of the UAV The technical processes carried out by the UAV (e.g., automatic object detection; Goodrich and Schultz, 2008).…”

“…Modelling the HRI decision-making process is challenging (Sheridan, 2016) but can deliver many benefits. Previously, decision models have been used to inform the design of user interfaces, training protocols, workstation layouts, and decision aids (Jenkins, 2012;Banks et al, 2021;Parnell et al, 2021b). The current paper discusses the use of HF decision models within HRI.…”