I doubt any workplace has been subject to closer study than the cockpits of civil aircraft. It is where workers’ relationship with complex machines and with each other can be at its most intense, and the consequences of failure most catastrophic. Thanks to flight recorders, those interactions can be analysed in detail, as most high-pressure decision-making cannot.
The recent recommendations of the US National Transportation Safety Board following the fatal crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets astonished me, therefore. The NTSB identified, in the words of its chairman, “a gap between the assumptions used to certify the Max and the real-world experiences” of the ill-fated Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crews. The implication was that Boeing, and its regulator the Federal Aviation Administration, in designing and approving new software for the plane had overestimated how quickly and effectively pilots and crew would respond to the multiple alerts triggered by in-flight emergencies.
Probes into the two crashes are continuing. Boeing has updated the software linked to the accidents and is refining its procedures and training. But despite decades of deep analysis of how flight crew behave under pressure, an experienced aircraft-maker apparently needed to be told to reconsider its approach. I dread to think how other less practised organisations may be misreading how people respond to the increased workload and stress imposed by technological advances.