Tag: Aviation safety

While all the pilots have the necessary skills to fly the aircraft, the captain is legally responsible for the flight. Depending on the situation and the pilots' personalities, this imbalance can sometimes compromise communication and adversely influence decision making. Power and cognitive bias Being in a position of power increases the risk of cognitive bias. This happened in 2011 during the approach of First Air flight 6560, when the relatively inexperienced first officer noticed that the aircraft was veering sightly off-course. Therefore, the greater the power imbalance between the captain and the first officer, the higher the risk of false-consensus bias in the cockpit. So why not simply abolish hierarchy among pilots? Moreover, a lack of hierarchy can prove just as disastrous, as it was for the two first officers at the controls of the Rio-Paris flight. Eliminating pilot hierarchy is therefore not an appropriate solution. It can be adversely affected by the hierarchical power imbalance. A detailed study of the impact of social factors on the way crews operate would be a boon to aviation safety.