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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Summary and Discussion of Findings

1. The Critical Requirements of the job of Airline Pilot. This survey has brought together an extensive amount of information from a number of different sources, but all related to the problem of the critical requirements of the airline pilot's job. The interviews with pilots enabled a more complete job analysis than would have been possible without their first-hand experiences. The employment of the "critical-incident technique" further amplified information of the kind ordinarily obtainable only from analysis of accidents. With such extensive data it was possible to obtain fairly reliable comparative indices of the degree to which specific components of the pilot's job are critical from the standpoint of differentiating between safe and effective airline flying and less safe and effective piloting. These comparative indices of how critical various job components actually are should provide a rich source of data for subsequent improvements of selection procedures, improvements in airline pilot training programs, and improvements in airline pilot evaluation procedures. To the present list of available pilot selection tests can be added new tests which will attempt to measure requirements found to be particularly critical for the airline pilot's job. To present training programs can be added procedures designed to increase the proficiency of pilots in the most critical aspects of their job; emphasis upon less critical components can be decreased. Finally, to present evaluation procedures can be added more refined measures and more appropriate standards of proficiency for these extremely critical components of the pilot's job.

A summary of the findings of this study which pertain to critical requirements first should call attention to the extreme range of kinds of pilot acts which produce critical situations and accidents. The contest analysis of the critical incidents produced 87 different kinds of pilot acts, which were grouped into 21 different job components. These data indicate that the most critical part of the pilot's job is that involving the skills of setting up and holding a proper angle of glide, rate of descent and speed of glide on the approach. Failure to perform this part of the job adequately results in three times as many accidents as does failure to perform any other part of the job. Further evidence of its critical nature is that ratings of successful pilots on the "Approach and Landing" part of the flight check were significantly higher than ratings of eliminated pilots. It is significant that pilots themselves do not rate this part of their job as very critical, considering the fact that only 5 out of 265 kinds of unfavorable comments made by captains on the performance of eliminated pilots had to do with this aspect of the job. Similarly, this job component ranked next to the last in the frequency with which kinds of pilot behavior were judged as causes of unsafe airline flying. On the other hand, this component was one on which eliminated pilots received a large percentage of below average ratings on check rides and routine flight reports.

Almost as critical is that component of the pilot's job involving the operation of controls, switches and other "gadgets." Although contributing to fewer accidents than some of the other pilot acts, errors in this component contributed to near-accidents with high frequency. Again, pilots do not