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Introduction
Situation awareness refers to the ability of a decision maker in a certain environment to perceive the status of any variables that will affect the decision he/she makes, and project their status after some time. These variables could be environmental aspects associated with space, time etcetera. The essence of situation awareness is the fact that when equipped with sufficient information about the current status and future status of the variables affecting the decision to be made, the decision maker is in a position to make a good decision.
Situation awareness is appropriately applied in dynamic and complex corporate environments like in controlling air traffic, operations of the military, fire fighting and other emergency services, and even in aviation. This paper is an in-depth exploration of intricate importance of situation awareness in the aviation industry.
Importance of situation awareness in aviation
Aviation is, perhaps, one of the most complex industries to manage. The complexity of aviation is mainly due to the fact that it is a professional undertaking that requires a lot of skills and competence. The complexity can also be attributed to the risks that are associated with mediocre decisions. It is for this reason that situation awareness is critically important in the aviation industry (“Enhancing Situation Awareness” 8).
Management and enhancement of situation awareness
It is important to manage situation awareness for it to bear fruits in the aviation industry. At any instant, the pilot should fly ahead of the aircraft by combining his/her perception of the variables affecting the flight with his/her experience in flying (Spielberger 129).
This is to say that as the pilot takes off, he/she should have a model of his/her flight, which is appropriately updated with respect to the environmental variables that the pilot experiences during the flight. The model creation process should be very thorough since its accuracy will translate to a better flight, and effective and efficient response to any unprecedented occurrences.
It is also of essence for the decision makers to facilitate collection and documentation of reliable data that can be effectively be used in predicting future occurrences. The aforementioned is useful as a management approach for situation awareness. Thus situation awareness makes people in aviation save resources and energy, which could otherwise be used in responding to events occurring due to unfavourable conditions. In a nutshell, situation awareness in aviation involves coupling real-world situations and the anticipations developed in the mental model based on experience. If the real-world situation does not match the expectations in our model, it is possible for the goals set in the model to be adjusted to achieve desired effects. This is normally accompanied by the feeling that one has lost control (Endslay 7).
Loss of situation awareness and recovery
A number of factors can potentially lead to loss of situation awareness. The process that has been described for management of situation awareness can occur at any stage of the process. One stage at which an error can occur is the perception stage during which either no data, or insufficient data is collected. In this stage, situation awareness can be recovered by utilizing a person with good judgment to give timely information about erroneous issues.
In the development of a model, errors could also occur due to poor knowledge, poor model or even poor observations. When these errors occur, situation awareness can be recovered by making efforts to get the necessary information or even make timely changes to the model as variables are observed. An error may also occur if the people making use of situation awareness become heavily reliant on the situation awareness model. In this case, recovery can only be possible if the users of the situation awareness model integrate the model with facts on the ground (Craig 97).
Works Cited
Craig, Paul. Controlling Pilot Error: Situational Awareness. New York. Barnes & Noble, 2001. Print.
Endslay, Mica. “Training for Situation Awareness”. 2000. Web.
Flight Operations Briefing Notes. Enhancing Situational Awareness. 2007. Web.
Spielberger, Donald. Encyclopedia of applied psychology. California. Wadsworth Publishing, 2004. Print.
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