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= Aviation Safety Culture = From the existing article: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation				Jump to search

Cockpit of a Boeing 787 (want to change photo, 787 flight deck not most evocative for article)

Culture can affect aviation safety through its effect on how the flight crew deals with difficult situations; cultures with lower power distances and higher levels of individuality can result in better aviation safety outcomes. In higher power cultures subordinates are less likely to question their superiors. The crash of Korean Air Flight 801 in 1997 was attributed to the pilot's decision to land despite the junior officer's disagreement, while the crash of Avianca Flight 52 was caused by the failure to communicate critical low-fuel data between pilots and controllers, and by the failure of the controllers to ask the pilots if they were declaring an emergency and assist the pilots in landing the aircraft. The crashes have been blamed on aspects of the national cultures of the crews.[citation needed]

'Aviation safety culture' is a phrase used to describe the specific application of safety culture research and practices to the aviation industry. Due to several comparatively unique characteristics of aviation and the somewhat insular nature of those who work in the industry, the term reflects a collection of practices, regulations, and reporting systems that have been developed within aviation and come to be linked to modern understandings of safety and accident prevention within aviation operations.

The broader term "safety culture" first appears in the 1987 OECD Nuclear Agency report following the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl powerplant (citation). The term expanded into aviation via XX and XX. Commonly, culture in the organizational context is defined as "the way we do things here" (Helmreich, XXXX). According to Helmreich, professions that involve risk or a high level of consequence (e.g., death, large-scale damage to people or property, and/or highly visible loss of equipment) also have a "safety culture", defined as "a constellation of individual and group values, attitudes and behaviours that reflect an organization's commitment to safety and effective safety management." (Helmreich, XXXX).

References:

Rodrigues & Cusick Commercial Aviation Safety 5th edition

Wickens, et al Human Factors Engineering 2nd edition

Helmreich, R.L. from "Safety Culture" by Patankar, et al