You are required to choose two accidents or incidents that involved human factors issues that contributed to the respective outcomes; either in a favorable or unfavorable way. You must choose at least one aviation-based Human Factors incident but for the second incident, you may choose another aviation case or an incident/accident from elsewhere.

You could consider:

• An industrial accident e.g.: Chernobyl Nuclear disaster, (26/04/1986); Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster, (11/03/2011); Bhopal Gas leak disaster (02/12/1984), 3 Mile Island Nuclear accident, (28/03/1979).
• A space vehicle accident e.g.: Apollo 1, (27/01/1967); Apollo 13, (11-17/04/1970); Space Shuttle Challenger, (28/01/1986); Space Shuttle Colombia, (01/02/2003).
• Another transport mode e.g.: The Glenbrook Rail Accident, (02/12/1999); The USS Greeneville (US attack submarine) & the Ehime Maru, (Japanese training fishing vessel), (09/02/2002); The Waterfall Rail Accident, (31/01/2003), Victoria XPT Rail crash, (20/02/2020).

This is by no means an exhaustive list; it is included simply to provide ideas. You may of course choose to use two aircraft incidents/accidents and that is quite acceptable.

Note: Do not choose a terrorist incident or deliberate act such as the Lindt Café, 9/11 or the German Wings suicide by pilot. While these all have Human Factors issues at play, they add another dimension of complexity that would be difficult to address in a 1500-word assignment.

Your Report should compare and contrast the two incidents, identifying points of difference and points of similarity. Remember, this assignment should focus on the Human Factors aspects highlighted in each incident.   

• This is an academic paper and therefore your in text referencing and Reference list should conform to the faculty standard – Harvard system.
• Plagiarism will likely result in a fail grade.
• This is an individual assessment item.

Format & Marking criteria

You may set out your report in a report format of your choice but as a guide you might consider the following:

 

• Table of contents*

1. Executive Summary* (5%)

• A brief (<100 word) summary of your paper.

2. Introduction (5%)

• The purpose of your report.

3. The Incident Description (20%)

• A summary of what happened in each case.

• Case One
• Case Two

4. The Human Factors Discussion (40%)

• A discussion of the key human factors issues in each case, compared and contrasted.

5.   Conclusion(20%)

• What was learned from what happened.

6. Recommendations (10%)

• What recommendations would you make to prevent similar incidents occurring.

9. References*

10. Appendix*

 

* These do not form part of the word count for your assignment.