10
$\begingroup$

This question is related to:

Standard industry practices of cockpit management can invert or disrupt very deep cultural and political expectations of command and authority.

The question

What evidence is there, in research, incident reports or other documented sources, that has identified political attitudes around race, gender or social class as human factors in the cockpit?

For example:

With more women in airline cockpits, have new human factors emerged (for example, a male pilot displeased to be questioned by a woman)?

In regions with troubled racial histories (southern Africa, the USA) have race relations and attitudes in the cockpit been responsible for incidents?

In cultures where social class or even caste is very significant, have these been implicated as human factors in the cockpit?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
7
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Could that be answered factually? It seems to call for individual opinions and non representative events. $\endgroup$ – mins May 27 '16 at 13:38
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ @mins Possibly. Accident reports do list these sorts of things as contributing factors. $\endgroup$ – fooot♦ May 27 '16 at 14:39
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @fooot Even so, accident reports are, by nature, discussing non-representative events. That said, I don't recall any accident reports where race, gender, or social class made any difference... unless you count a GA accident report where the people in the front seats were of opposite gender and investigation of the crash scene indicated that they were engaged in activities other than flying the aircraft. $\endgroup$ – reirab May 27 '16 at 15:47
  • 9
    $\begingroup$ How is this "opinion-based"? I'm not asking whether some random person has opinions about any of these things; I'm asking whether research has identified new human factors emerging, whether incident investigations have implicated race attitudes or relations in their reports; whether social class has been implicated in incident investigations. Whether or not this is the case fact. Even if you completely disagree with any such reports or research, it's still a fact that these factors were implicated (or not) in them. $\endgroup$ – Daniele Procida May 27 '16 at 23:27
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ This question seems too broad. Possible more specific questions include "does gender play a role in the perceived importance of cockpit communication," "are lower class pilots less likely to challenge their partner's authority," "How many accidents have had race as a contributing factor," "What is being done to compensate for strong social class differences when implementing CRM" or even "how do they select the gender of aural annunciations." $\endgroup$ – Cody P May 31 '16 at 20:00
1
$\begingroup$

There are numerous accident reports that state cultural issues as contributing factors, especially respect for elders / superiours / social class in Asian countries leading to poor "Crew Resource Management" - typically the co-pilot failing to challenge the captain.

The first examples that come to mind are:

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
0
-4
$\begingroup$

As a aeronautics and space student, I can tell you that there are standards(especially US military standards) for the configuration of the cockpit.wethear the hight of the seat and the length of the arm( it is needed to know if the pilot can reach all devices without struggle). You are right, there are many different people with different body shapes and sizes. however, the aircraft manufacturers have standards and pilots who don't fit the standard have it a little bit difficult. Moreover, if you might notice military pilots are picked carefully to match the standard, since a pilot needs to fit in the best way to the plane so he will be focused on flight rather then comfot. To answer your question, there are no modifications special for race or gender, unless you build a customize plane.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
3
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ You seem to have missed the point of the question, at no point does it ask about ergonomic standards, which is what your answer is about. The question is about social, cultural and political disagreements in the cockpit. $\endgroup$ – AEhere supports Monica Jan 14 '19 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ I answered you both in the technical part of engineering. Since you are interested in the social part, there is racial and gender bias everywhere... So where there is bias the aviation company will have bias as well so it will hire according to that bias. $\endgroup$ – Margarita Zabolotny Jan 14 '19 at 9:22
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I understand what you answered, the issue is that it does not answer the question as asked, and on this site we prefer answers that stick to what was asked, or at least address the actual question before going off on a tangent. $\endgroup$ – AEhere supports Monica Jan 14 '19 at 10:22

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.