Impact of perceived stress, safety attitude and flight experience on hazardous event involvement of aviators

Abstract

The pilots’ attitude and its influence on flying performance have an imperative bearing on flight safety. Recent studies suggest that attitude and stress correlate with flying performance and could be one of the many factors, which contribute to accidents or incidents. The objective of the current research was to study the relationship between aviation safety attitude, flight experience, perceived stress, and hazardous event involvement among aviators. The study also investigated whether aviation safety attitude, perceived stress, and flying experience predict the hazardous event involvement of aviators or not. It was hypothesised that less flying experience, perceived stress, and aviation safety attitude will predict the hazardous event involvement of aviators. The data was collected from 360 aviators by using the aviation safety attitude scale, hazardous event scale, and perceived stress scale. Correlation and regression analysis were used for analysing the obtained data. The findings of the study indicated that flight experience and safety attitude are significantly negatively correlated with hazardous event involvement and perceived stress is significantly positively associated with hazardous event involvement. In addition to this, aviation safety attitude, perceived stress, and flying experience were found to be strong predictors of hazardous event involvement. The findings of the study will help in building effective training programs as accidents can be prevented by improved pilot training involving perceived stress and attitude identification and management.