Crew safety: Lesson from the aviation industry

The safety and wellbeing of both crew and vessel are the primary responsibility of any skipper.

Without exception every crew leader will attest to this and yet it is nearly impossible to find a single MAIB (Marine Accident Investigation Branch) report that doesn’t attribute a safety failure to some degree of human error and breakdown in communication, sometimes with catastrophic results. So, what are we in the sailing world doing wrong?

To answer this question it pays to look at the aviation industry, which has acknowledged and addressed the impact of ‘human factors’ for almost 40 years.

With a single passenger aircraft carrying up to 800 people, eliminating error is absolutely critical in flight.

In 1981 United Airlines introduced Crew Resource Management (CRM) training, to try and improve safety by focusing on interpersonal communication, leadership and decision making in the cockpit of an airliner. The CRM model proved so successful it has since become ingrained in aviation safety culture.