Management of Multiple Tasks: Cockpit Task Management Errors

A flightcrew’s behavior is affected by the set of concurrent tasks they are attending to at any given time, and system performance is dependent on the availability of both human and system resources. If the demands of concurrent tasks exceed the flightcrew’s supply of resources or the resources are improperly allocated, i.e., poorly managed, then the flightcrew is likely to exhibit degraded performance, which may adversely affect safety and effectiveness of the aircraft system. This research adopts the view that a flightcrew does not only have to perform tasks, but manage them as well. It assumes that proper task management can be crucial to the successful completion of the flight mission. From this perspective, a framework for Cockpit Task Management (CTM) has been proposed. Based on this framework, a set of CTM errors will be derived from aircraft accident/incident reports and flight simulator experiments. The results of these studies will be used for developing the specifications for a PVI which facilitates the CTM functions. The remainder of this paper describes our research. The Chaneing Role of the Flightcrew Rapid advances in hardware and software technologies along with the quest for safer flight and economical concerns, among other thrusts, have pushed today’s aircraft toward higher levels of automation [l, 21. Even though aviation human factors experts have mixed feelings about this concept, virtually all new generation airplanes are built around fly-by-wire and glass cockpit concepts [3]. As a result of this trend, the role of today’s pilot has changed from that of a moment-to-moment controller to that of a system monitor or supervisor. Also, cockpit tasks have become more cognitive in nature. Combined with the increased level of automation in today’s cockpit, the increasing air traffic density, more regulations, and poorly integrated cockpit systems make today’s flying operations mor2 difficult than