Agency Wants to Manage|Airplane Crew Errors

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Federal Aviation Administration plans to amend design requirements for transport category airplanes to minimize design-related flightcrew errors, and harmonize U.S. airworthiness standards with the European equivalent.

The agency hopes to enable flightcrews to detect and manage errors when they occur.

The agency states in a notice of its plans that "equipment design, training, qualifying through licensing, establishing correct operations and procedures, all contribute to safety by avoiding or minimizing risk."

In the notice the agency admits that, "there have been cases in the past where design characteristics known to contribute to flightcrew error were accepted, with the rationale that training or procedures would mitigate that risk. We now know that such an approach may be inappropriate."

The agency's rationale includes that, "it would also be inappropriate to require equipment design to always provide complete risk avoidance or mitigation, because such an approach may not be practicable in some cases, and may even create new risks."

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