Study Of The Impact Of The Aviation Safety Culture Of The Unit Safe Flight Behavior

In many aspects, Civil Aviation Industry is thought to be characterized with "high-tech, high risk and high cost". Although accidents are inevitable in the industry, great efforts have been made to postpone safety flight hours while keeping the characteristic of "high reliability organization". Several fields are showing increasing interest in safety culture as a means of reducing accidents in the workplace. The existing research achievements indicate that aviation safety culture has already become a kind of valid measure to manage human errors and prevent aviation incidents and accidents. Furthermore, good safety culture has positive effect on raising safe performance. Therefore, this paper applies relative theories based on the previous research findings, such as safety science, aviation psychology, human factor engineering, to define the content structures of aviation safety culture and aviation safety climate under Chinese cultural background, and to go further to attempt to explore creatively the influence of aviation safety culture on safe flight behaviors of the aircrew and how aviation safety culture affects safe flight behaviors of the aircrew, which will provide theoretical basis for the theoretical study and practice effectiveness of aviation safety culture in the future.Firstly, based on the existing literatures, the current study develops the "aviation safety culture scale" and "aviation safety climate scale" under Chinese cultural background. The detailed process is as follows: the scale's structure is identified through carrying on in-depth interview with 16 pilots and mentioning other methods based on the previous researches etc. Then adopting 106 valid subjects, the pre-test was carried out. Through item analysis, the study develops the formal scales. A total of 378 valid subjects are tested through the Exploration Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmation Factor Analysis (CFA).The results show that the formal scales are of good credibility and validity. The two scales are suitable for this research. Secondly, the study makes use of the revised line/los Checklist 4.0 Version to perform safety audit to 150 pilots. Then CFA and reliability test are performed on the data collected from the audit. The results show that the checklist has the good construct validity and credibility, too. The two former findings can provide premise supports for the latter research that examines how aviation safety culture can influence safe flight behaviors of the aircrew. Thirdly, under the condition of ensuring the dimensions of the scales, structural equation modeling (SEM) was estimated so as to test how aviation safety culture affects safe flight behaviors of the aircrew via the detailed path. At last, the study takes a comparison investigation on how different factors can be respectively represented on the dimensions of aviation safety culture and aviation safety climate, including different titles, flight hours, airlines and ages.The following results are achieved through theoretical and empirical research:(1) The contents and structures of aviation safety culture under Chinese cultural background are defined, and the theoretical model of aviation safety culture is established. Aviation safety culture under Chinese culture background consists of three relatively independent parts, each with an independent content composing, namely occupational culture of airline pilots, aviation organizational safety culture, cockpit culture. The profession culture of airline pilots is constituted by the following three particular dimensions: sense of occupational pride, sense of occupational pressure and sense of safety responsibility. The organizational safety culture contains five concrete dimensions, which are organizational commitment, organizational safety attitude, pilot empowerment, reporting system and organizational support. The cockpit culture includes four dimensions, which are power distance, communication cooperation, level of stress and cognition of automatic.(2) The study distinguishes the difference between aviation safety culture and safe climate using the empirical analysis. The results show that aviation safe climate is a term that is different from aviation safety culture. Five dimensions are included as follows: perceived barrier, perceived safety cause , perceived work environment, perceived risk and colleague influence.(3) The study estimates about how aviation safety culture can influence safe flight behaviors of the aircrew through SEM, and confirms the detailed path.â‘ From the point of view of integrative aviation safety culture, the result of SEM shows that the effect of aviation safety culture on safe flight behaviors of the aircrew was mediated by aviation safety climate.â‘¡From the point of view of aviation safety culture consisted of three parts, the results of SEM show that the effect of occupational culture of airline pilots and aviation organizational safety culture on safe flight behaviors of the aircrew was mediated by cockpit culture, while the effect of cockpit culture on safe flight behaviors of the aircrew was partially mediated by aviation safety climate.(4) The study takes a comparison investigation on how different factors, i.e. different titles, flight hours, airlines and ages, are respectively represented on the dimensions of aviation safety culture and aviation safety climate.â‘ Pilots with different titles have no significant difference on dimensions of aviation safety culture and aviation safety climate.â‘¡Pilots who fulfill different flight hours have no significant difference on dimensions of aviation safety culture and aviation safety climate. â‘¢Pilots who work in different airlines have significant difference on five dimensions , including sense of safety responsibility, pilot empowerment, organizational support and power distance of aviation safety culture ,perceived work environment of aviation safety climate.â‘£Pilots with different ages have significant difference only on pilot empowerment of aviation safety culture ,and there is no significant difference on dimensions of aviation safety climate.