A future airliner’s reduced-crew: modelling pilot incapacitation and homicide-suicide with systems theory

Abstract

One main hurdle towards commercial airliners' Reduced-Crew Operations (RCO) is how to encounter pilot incapacitation. The aim of this modelling study is to evaluate the potential effects of a single-pilot's incapacitation on a future design approach to RCO. Most solutions propose a ground support of the pilot by a remote operator whom control should be handed over in case of an emergency. Both incapacitation and homicide-suicide have been discussed in the literature but neither of these events have been modelled nor evaluated empirically. We introduce a future operational design concept for RCO which includes a remotecopilot as ground support and automation tools monitoring pilot's health and entries into aircraft systems. The hazard analysis technique System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) was used to model and analyse scenarios of incapacitation/homicidesuicide. A hierarchical control structure showed how RCO can be embedded into commercial aviation. The STPA of pilot incapacitation and two scenarios of pilot homicide-suicide showed how unsafe control actions leading to an incident or accident after incapacitation/homicide-suicide could be prevented. The possible detection and takeover of control by the ground support in the case of incapacitation raised the question for detailed procedures on how to react to its detection. Either an autoland by the remote-copilot or by an affiliated system is possible. An additional breakup of data-link may only be solved by an automatic landing system on-board.

Systems Thinking in Aerospace: The Contributions to the Design of Future Airliners’ Single Pilot Operations

“…These have received most attention in the literature. The STAMP and STPA models for pilot incapacitation , 2019a and rapid decompression (Revell et al, 2019) in SPO showed how the STS can counter specific unsafe control actions (UCAs) to recover to a safe state. Functions of advanced automation monitoring the pilot's health and safety of entries into aircraft systems were modelled predictively.…”

“…CWA in combination with social network analysis (SNA) were used to allocate functions and give general design advice (Schmid et al, 2020;Stanton, Harris, & Starr, 2016). STAMP and STPA have been used to model pilot incapacitations and rapid decompression predictively (Revell et al, 2019;, 2019a and to define requirements for training and technological infrastructure elements (Schmid, Korn, Wies, & Stanton, 2019;Schmid & Stanton, 2019c). Baseline analyses had been created before to serve as a model to transfer operating principles to future SPO by using STPA (Schmid, Vollrath, & Stanton, 2018) and EAST (Stanton, Plant, et al, 2019).…”

The technology acceptance scale: Its Bayesian psychometrics assessed in a factor analysis via Markov chain Monte Carlo models

“…In the present concept of SPO (Koltz et al, 2015;Schmid & Stanton, 2019b;, the participant taking part as a remote-copilot mandatorily supported the single-pilot during departure and arrival in flight planning and navigation as pilot monitoring. The single-pilot and Captain, a confederate of the experimenter team, was the pilot flying and acted a pilot incapacitation in half of the flight-trials.…”

Single-pilot airline operations: Designing the aircraft may be the easy part

“…However, more capable automated/autonomous systems can now potentially be employed to this end. Even so, there will still remain a need for remote support of a single-piloted aircraft [55,56]. • Single pilot with a ground-based team member replacing the second pilot: Neis, Klingauf and Schiefele [34] described four broad sub-categories of configuration using this approach:…”