Crm - Flight 232 & 401

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Crew Resource Management Flight 232 & 401 Since the beginning of aviation numerous avoidable disasters have occurred. Due to the frequency of these preventable disasters significant research has been conducted into several areas of aviation with the conclusion being drawn that human error was a major contributing factor to the majority of these crashes. The findings of research conducted into human error lead to the development of the training program titled Cockpit Resource Management, or CRM as it is known. Since its introduction CRM has evolved and is now in its fifth generation of use as an aviation training tool. The first generation of the Cockpit Resource Management program was initiated by United Airlines in 1981. Its courses were psychological in nature, with a heavy focus on psychological testing and general concepts such as leadership. The focus changed over time and in the second generation started dealing with more relevant and specific aviation concepts relating to flight with the focus becoming team work. Courses on team building, briefing strategies, situation awareness and stress management were taught and pilots and crew were given strategies to break the chain of errors that occur in highly stressful situations. Dr John Lauber, a pioneer in aviation safety, defines CRM as ‘the effective utilisation of all available resources, hardware, software and live ware (human ware) to achieve safe, efficient flight operations’ (Lauber, 1984). In order to apply this definition and gain a better understanding of CRM, two vastly different accident sequences have been analysed below. On the 29th December 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades with no engine or system failures of any sort. Of the 285 passengers on board, 112 were killed in the crash. The following text describes the events leading up to the

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