The world of air transport is severely affected by a dual crisis –the search for “decarbonisation” and the more sudden, trickier question of managing the COVID-19 pandemic – and certain issues will persist regardless of developments. In order to move forward in technical areas, AAE has endeavoured to identify avenues for progress.

This dossier deals with one of these avenues: safety. More specifically it looks into human operational behaviour in the face of unexpected situations, which are fairly frequent and potentially dangerous, despite the increasingly thorough planning of air transport missions. The study is an original one, and is intended to be effective. Based on a highly detailed analysis of five accidents, chosen for their complementarity, it characterises both the human deficiencies and the faults in the systems involved, leading to recommendations which are easily transposable to the operational use of any aircraft.