12.04.15.doc
WAYS REDUCE THE IMPACT OF HUMAN FACTORS ON SAFETY THE FLIGHTS
Ph.D. in Technical Michael Kozlov
Expert of Institute integration and professional adaptation, Netanya (Israel)
E-mail: 19mike19k@gmail.com tel.(972)527 052 460
SUMMARY:
To reduce the impact of human factors on the safe operation of civil aviation, in the article discusses the need before performing flight to check the level of anxiety of the pilots airliners with using measuring devices, holding psychological training of pilots using the tools of control and the desirability develop of doublers pilots, endowed with artificial intelligence.
KEY WORDS: Anxiety, default neural network, heart rate variability, intelligent doubler of pilot.
INTRODUCTION
As the complexity of functional systems of the aircraft and increasing requirements for air transportation, increased the psychological stress on pilots [1]. With the increasing complexity and reliability of aircraft the role of the human factor becomes decisive in the flight safety. If at the dawn of aviation, 80 percent of accidents were caused by damage of the machine and 20 percent human error, now about 80 percent of accidents are related to the improper actions of humans [2]. It may be errors of the crew, mechanics or air traffic controllers, and sometimes malicious actions of one of the pilots.
Cause of the crash an airliner Airbus A320 airline Germanwings, which crashed in the Alps March 24, 2015 with 250 people on board, was associated with the behavior of the second pilot. In civil aviation, such situations arise periodically. The reason of the behavior of the pilot may be its negative emotional state. Because of such state of the pilots occurred the plane crash in 1997 in Indonesia aircraft of airline Silk Air with 104 people on board and in October 1999 of the Egyptian airliner Boeing 767 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean with 217 people on board. Most likely, a similar accident occurred at the March 2014 of Malaysian aircraft Boeing 777-200 with 239 people on board. The co-pilot of the aircraft Airbus A320 previously been treated for depression [3], and it is likely that he was in the ill-fated flight in a negative emotional state.
As seen, the weak link in the human-machine interaction is a pilot, and the solution to the problem of unpredictable behaviour of the pilot is relevant.
THE NEED TO ASSESS THE EMOTIONAL STATE PILOTS
In [4] was said that the negative emotional state of human is often linked to his anxiety, which does not appear immediately, but is formed as a result of a sufficiently long period of time with repeated admission stimuli which were evaluated as negative. Something similar happened with the second pilot Airbus A320.
As a result of this state of is increased readiness to respond and, in analyzing of the current situation, simultaneously narrowed the set of possible options associative links to a minimum. Responding to stimuli is accelerated while reducing the level of reliability of the generated solutions [5]. With this is increased the level of selection of a negative stimuli, increasing sensitivity to them, and, due to the specific emotional selection of incoming information in the anxiety state, in memory of the person accumulates current information with the negative assessment of adequate state of
human [6]. Anxiety can be fixed during the following hours, free from external stimuli during sleep, due to the feedback of default neural network [7, 8]. And in the process of a fairly long and
unsuccessful search for solutions to the situation the anxiety will be further strengthened. In this case, the possibility of reaching a decision and subject-oriented emotional assessment of hopelessness of the situation leads to panic and can appear a willingness to commit suicide.
THE POSSIBILITIES OF ESTIMATING THE LEVEL OF ANXIETY
Before the flight, pilots are checked for the presence of alcohol and blood pressure measured. Control with the help of a psychologist is complicated and it may be not enough reliable. As shown in [4] for psycho-diagnostics can be used a tools that allow to estimate the emotional state of the pilots with a high degree of certainty.
At the anxiety state, through neuro-humoral regulation mechanism is changed the functional state of the organism. To control the stress state is possible, for example, the use of estimates by entering Damasio [9] of somatic markers, or estimates obtained through the application of highly effective methods of analysis of the vegetative nervous system based on the measurement of parameters of heart rate variability (HRV) [10, 11 ].
Assessing the level of anxiety based on HRV analysis quantitatively good enough representing the link of brain-body, does not take long, and short-term analysis is not more than 5 minutes [10].
For rapid assessment of the level of anxiety of the pilot based on the analysis of HRV parameters is advisable to create an automated hardware-software complex (HSC). In memory of the HSC must be stored all previous measurements of HRV pilots, on the basis of which can be compared current measurements with previously performed that will provide a more reliable forecast of anxiety state of the tested pilots. Using this forecast, the doctor of airlines can more objectively to conclude about the admission of the pilot for the flight.
ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNICAL MEASURES
Using automated HSC to assess level of anxiety the pilot before the flight using Data Mining will simplify the procedure of psychological control of pilots and improve its quality as for airline companies as well as to other controlling their organizations.
In addition to the above, it is advisable to consider the following measures.
In psychometric personality use various psychological tests [12]. With their help, a psychiatrist, according to apperception the subject’s of the test data, indirectly examines the state of emotional centres of the patient. Man is endowed by a number of basic emotions. Individual combination of levels of these emotions influence on making decision (MD) of man [9]. Every emotion is formed in a certain area of the brain and lack of development or disruption of the emotional centres can significantly affect the MD [13, 14]. In [15] presented data from studies of brain criminals belonging to the group «psychopaths». Scanning of their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed serious anomalies in two areas of the brain responsible for emotions of compassion, guilt and shame. They also lacked the ability to adjust behaviour depending on the positive or negative consequences of their actions. Thus, with the help of modern tools possible to detect irregularities in the emotional centres, leading to a variety of mental disorders, such as psychopathy and pathological narcissism. After relevant research and mining techniques, the use of said means will help in determining the professional suitability of pilots with a high degree of reliability than applicable the psychological tests.
It is necessary to strengthen measures on the formation of psychological stability of the pilots and the formation in the minds of the pilots such absolutely priority professional skills, as the necessity to ensure the safety of passengers. Such psychological immunity with years are generated in the majority of pilots, but this professional skill can be achieved as a result of targeted psychological training that should be provided in the course of preparation of the future pilots as need. In that training under the guidance of experts in engineering psychology, can use the training
modules based on computers and medical monitoring, such as electroencephalographs and tomographs. It is known that the experimentally used training modules and the fMRI brain of drivers in teaching of skills safe driving [16, 17]. Such means of control can be used and for the instrumental checking of professional training of pilots at the above psychological parameters.
Attention is drawn to the fact that the plane crash airline Silk Air, Egyptian airliner Boeing 767 and Airbus A320 aircraft occurred during situations when one of the pilots left their workplace. Generally accepted safety regulations prohibit the employment of one person in a hazardous environment. Can be treated that the presence only one pilot’s in the closed cockpit of the plane carrying more than one hundred passengers is a gross violations of such rules. The rules of conduct of the crew must exclude this situation, by allowing access the cockpit of one of the crew members on during the absence in it of one of the pilots. This reduces the risk as previously conceived suicide of one of the pilots, as well of spontaneous desire to accomplish this. As mentioned above, the reaction of the person who is in the anxiety state is accelerated, and it can respond quickly to a convenient situation. From the above should be considered as inappropriate the objection of national union pilots France against the «rule of two persons» in the cockpit of passenger aircraft. [18].
Obviously, in a sequential chain of action the pilot — aircraft need strengthen feedback between the aircraft and the person to control the actions of the pilot. From decryption of data recorder Airbus A320 airliner is seen that the co-pilot to manually changed the mode of the autopilot by setting it to the minimum flight altitude of 100 feet. At the current technical capabilities of such deliberately wrong actions of the pilot could have been avoided. For each flight is approved the route, in which defined the basic parameters of the movement of aircraft on the route, and which obliged to adhere a pilot. Technically possible to develop a device in the form of intelligent doubler of pilot (IDP), which by loaded in it the route parameters will control the movement of the aircraft in accordance with the incoming current information. When exceeding the permissible deviations from the flight data, possessing by artificial intelligence, IDP notify about it the pilots and ground controllers. In an emergency, the IDP blocks the actions of pilots and flight control takes over, by coordinate activities with the air traffic controller (and possibly without such coordination). Necessary to provide and the technical feasibility of landing using IDP. Spaceplane «Buran» early as 1988 made a flight and landing on the airfield in the automatic mode under the control of the onboard computer. Now NASA and a number of aircraft manufacturers are working in this direction [19]. Perhaps for a better functioning, the IDP should provide by artificial emotions [20]. In the program codes such a IDP need lay the positive emotional adjustments based on a set of rules of conduct, as discussed in [21] for emotional intelligent agents. This ensures the formation of the Friendly IDP with respect to the User.
In unusual situations, the air traffic controller must be able to activate work IDP and to interact with it to ensure the safety of the flight.
CONCLUSIONS
The use of devices to measure the level of anxiety pilots can significantly reduce the impact on safety of flights such a human factors as a negative emotional state of the pilot. This assessment is based on the analysis of heart rate variability parameters should be used for testing air traffic controllers. Particular attention should be paid to the psychological training with using diagnostic equipment. In the future, it is desirable to use intelligent doubler of pilot.
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Иллюстрация: cabinair.ru
