Causes and Factors Involving Aircraft Accidents

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This term paper reviews the three most common catagories of aviation accident causes and factors. The causes and factors that will be discussed are human performance, environmental, and the aircraft itself. Although flying is one of the safest means of transportation, accidents do happen. It is the investigators job to determine why the accident happened, and who or what was at fault. In the event of an accident, either one or all of these factors will be determined as the cause of the accident. Also discussed will be one of the most tradgic plane crashes in aviation history and the human factors involved.

With any accident investigation one of the main focuses is to determine the cause and factors involved in the accident. Determining the cause of the accident would consist of finding out why the accident happened (NTSB, 2010). This can include any mechanical failures to environmental issue or even human error can be a serious cause to an aircraft accidents. All facts, conditions, and circumstances are taken into account when determining the probably cause in an investigation (NTSB, 2010).

Determining all the possible factors that are involved in an accident can help an investigator determine all the probable causes contributing to the accident. This can also help to determine weather or not the probable cause could have been prevented. All accidents usually have multiple contributing cause and factors which lead to a series of events causing the accident. Three of the most common cause and factors involved in a crash are the aircraft itself, the environment, or personnel (NTSB, 2010). Personnel factors are the leading cause of aircraft accidents.

According to the Nation Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in...

... middle of paper ...

...t realize that if they had not touched the control colum the autopilot system would have corrected itself.

Knowing the three most common cause and factors in an aircraft accident can help investigators in there investigation. Althought aircraft accidents will eventually happen, knowing this information can help to reduce the number of accidents, and the significance if one should happen.

Works Cited

National Transportation Safety Board. (2010, July 30). Annual Review of U.S. General

Aviation Accident Data 2006. Annual Review NTSB/ARG-10/01, pp. 38-50. Retrieved Feburary 6, 2011, from http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2010/ARG1001.pdf

Department of Transport and Regional Development. (1996, April). Human Factors in

Fatal Aircraft Accidents, pp. 2-6. Retrieved Feburary 15, 2011, from http://www.narcap.org/articles/HumanFactorsinFatalAircraftaccidents.pdf

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