- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Co-pilots on commercial aircraft use the indirect
approach to correct pilots who are making mistakes, even though those mistakes
can be a matter of life or death, a report published Tuesday found.
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- "Such a strategy might be considered
more collegial or polite than a bald command," said Judith Orasanu
of NASA's Ames Laboratory, which helped fund the study. "However,
by being indirect, speakers run the risk of not being heard," Orasanu
said in a statement.
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- Because of their high status, airline
captains, both male and female, give more than twice the number of commands
as first officers, the study found. Case studies of airline accidents show
first officers often must correct a captain's mistake.
-
- Nonetheless, first officers surveyed
for the study said they would most often use hints, and U.S. first officers
were twice as likely as their European counterparts to hint rather than
state clearly what the problem was.
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- "There are advantages and disadvantages
to being indirect," said Ute Fischer of the Georgia Institute of Technology's
School of Literature, Communication and Culture, who led the study.
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- "By pointing out a problem, the
speaker leaves the choice of a corrective action to the hearer. So the
speaker tries to minimize imposition on the hearer," Fischer said.
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- But this can lead to misunderstandings.
-
- "Problem statements may be taken
at face value and may not be understood as a request to act. Also, because
problem statements exert little pressure, the hearer may not take the speaker's
intention sufficiently serious," Fischer said.
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- The findings were published in the Proceedings
of the Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology.
-
- Communication problems -- both within
aircraft crews and between air and ground crews -- contribute significantly
in aircraft incidents and accidents, Fischer said.
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