Individual-related Factors and Management-related Factors in Aviation Maintenance

Aviation safety relies heavily on maintenance, yet improper maintenance contributes to a significant proportion of safety threats that cause aviation accidents or incidents. In order to fully understand the maintenance errors and contributing factors, this paper investigated a sample of 3,783 Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incident reports submitted in the period of January 1st 2008 to December 31st 2008, which are formed by maintenance personnel or non-maintenance personnel. The Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA) and Correspondence Analysis (CA) methods are used to analysis maintenance error, its contributing factors and the relationship between them. The result shows both maintenance personnel and non-maintenance personnel considered human error accounts for a large proportion of maintenance error, and individual-related factors and management-related factors are the most frequent reasons for maintenance error. The outcomes also indicate that non-maintenance perspective should not be ignored because it can provide abundant information which is not included in maintenance personnel reports and helpful to reduce error. Meanwhile, the management-related factors are as crucial as individual-related factors, which should be paid more attention.