The ASPEN ONE project began as an idea based on the premise that the average aircraft technician, and in many cases the supervisors, on the floor of the maintenance hangar or shop has very little, if any, exposure to what is being explored and studied in the field of Human Error and Human Factors. The human error phenomenon rules the roost as the leader in flight incident and accident causes. It also is the prime cause in maintenance issues that result in damages and accidents that cost big money as well as lives. The Project strives to be a breath of fresh air to this old problem, with the goal of harvesting higher returns for the years of research put forth to date. This is done by providing an active communications system that networks research and affected companies and their people.
The Project also exists as an "entity for ideas" to be forwarded. that will benefit the flight operation in it's daily dealings. It seeks to highlight error prone working environments from the trench view. This sounds like some sort of corporate double talk, but it will go at the problem from the opposite direction. The goal is to help technicians and service workers recognize "heads up" indicators that the environment is rich for a bad decision to be made. The Project seeks to do this from the floor in addition to traditional efforts to deal with it. Error prone situations can come and go in seconds or a minute, or they can be maintenance project stopping excersises that require several decision makers to resolve.
The idea is that the project seeks to take the research in the area of Human Error and Human Factors as they relate to aviation safety, and use the information to help in asking the right questions from the perspective of the techs and other service workers. If I were a night technician working in a cold environment, what would my main issues be with the environment I work in and the difficulties of getting the job done right without errors? Would I benefit from awareness of and training in some of the research data and findings? What would be important to know, and what sort of training would produce the best results for the department and industry? These questions are rarely thought of by the technician and service level personnel. Do they need to even ask these questions?
A bigger picture way to see what the Project is would be to say that it seeks ideas to more actively involve the flight department maintenance operation and maintenance services people in the prevention of human error incidents, from the floor up, in a similar way that flight training programs do, and to do it in a way that won't adversely impact production. The workers need to know more than they do about the subject because they are the ones who everyone depends on.
Safety Audits address identified problem areas and make recommendations to remedy the issues. But what do we do to help the technician and service worker understand why he or she may fall into a trap resulting in exactly the wrong decision? How can it be done without it appearing to be a wasted effort to the service personnel? How can it be made to be an interesting subject for the service people? How can we do it in way that won't appear "stupid, idiotic and a waste of time" to the floor personell? Would it help me, the worker, to be presented with findings on why bad decisions are made? Do I have any valuable input that would improve the operation in this area?
These questions bring forward ideas, and perhaps out of one hundred mediocre ideas could come one that makes a big difference.
Where did the
Project spring up from?
The ASPEN ONE project
started as a curiosity into aircraft accident investigations published
in Aviation Week & Space Technology that I started reading in the late
1970's. They were published in a lengthy format back then.
The first one I read with interest was the report on the 747 runway collision
on Tenerife Island in the Atlantic. I subscribed to the magazine
then while I was in A&P school and it provided the most interesting
reading I could find at the time. I found back issues at the library
and read other reports. Human error echoed throughout the entire
exercise and stayed with me.
Subsequently I had an incident in which I, through my own failed decisions, caught a turboprop engine on fire during a ground test and destroyed it along with some of the wing structure of the aircraft. This motivated me to try to understand what led up to the decision failures. Several years later I was certified as an aircraft accident investigator with a turbine engine manufacturer. In addition to what I learned in the course of certification, I witnessed a number of other cases during aircraft accident investigations where bad decisions resulted in high dollar losses and air crew fatalities.
One incident in particular involving a maintenance recommendation decision by an airframe manufacturer resulted in the in-flight deaths of 4 people and it left a big impression on me. Since then, I have been largely self-taught in the field of human error and human factors, exploring ideas on how to apply them to the aircraft maintenance field. There have been countless trips to the local university library, intense searching on the internet reading untold numbers of .pdf documents in addition to other books on the subject that I have acquired.
Make no mistake. Most of my time has been behind the wrench but with equal time in the field of communications. I don't claim to be highly educated or degreed. One of my curiosities has been "Can a lay person make an impact in a field reserved primarily for researchers and other noble scholars?" I believe he or she could. I have affronted a few academics who accused me of forwarding ideas that were "ridiculous and embarrasing". I thought that was pretty cool. It was followed by masses of objections backing me up. I don't mind stirring it up a little because it gets everyone thinking outside the box.
As the project resources build, the communications will organize into an active and known system to help supervisors and employees understand the field in a more down to earth way.
So where does
the project stand now?
The Project was
being conceived and built in 1997 and 1998. It was shelved it in
late 1998. It was resurrected in March of 2002 to see where it could
go. It's simply a labor of love. There are plans in the
works to present the Project's ideas to different corporate aviation departments
for feedback. The snowball is just starting to roll again.....