Citation

Clarke DM. Risk Anal. 2008; 28(2): 573-574.

Affiliation

Rolls-Royce plc, Derby, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Society for Risk Analysis, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01033.x

PMID

18419670

Abstract

Book Review: Many accidents across different industries are attributed to human error. The understanding of this attribution is often that an individual or a team failed in some way through lack of skill, vigilance, or conscientiousness. This approach to human error has several consequences. Most importantly, it encourages a neglect of underlying factors in the system that create the conditions in which error can occur and, as a result, leads to limited and often ineffective risk reduction measures. In the context of aviation, The Limits of Expertise by Dismukes, Berman, and Loukopoulos challenges this common understanding of accidents and error. Through detailed analysis of accidents, the authors set out to provide an understanding of why highly skilled professional pilots make errors and how these errors should be viewed when seeking to prevent future mishaps. The message of the book is that experts such as professional pilots, even the very best, cannot be expected to perform faultlessly at all times. Errors will occur as a result of systemic weaknesses. Consequently, it is necessary for designers to both support reliability of human performance and to engender resilience in the system against the errors (and other failures) that will inevitably occur.

Language: en