Author Description

Naval Aviation has been challenged to cut its 1996 human factors related Class A flight mishap rate in half by the year 2000. Investigations show that human caused flight mishaps have not declined as rapidly as mechanical ones. From fiscal year 1990 through 1997, maintenance was a causal factor in 17 percent of Class A flight mishaps. Presently, there is an ongoing effort to identify factors contributing to human error in aviation maintenance. One major component is the development of an instrument to assess safety climate and posture in maintenance operations. This thesis is the climate safety assessment portion of this effort. It utilizes and adapts an existing Model of Organizational Safety Effectiveness (MOSE) to achieve an understanding of the possible influences of organizational factors on aviation maintenance. This thesis develops and administers a prototype Maintenance Climate Assessment Survey (MCAS) that provides a tool for assessing safety in maintenance operations. The study has 268 participants from three Reserve squadrons that represent the spectrum of aviation communities. The prototype MCAS is comprised of 67 questions developed from 155 candidate questions. Each question uses a Likert type rating scale, which allows participants to express opinions for each item presented. Cluster and Factor analysis is used to identify redundancies between items and how items clustered according to the MOSE components. The product of this study is a finalized MCAS with 35 questions that can be used by the Squadron command and Aviation Safety Officer to assess their unit's safety posture in conducting scheduled/unscheduled maintenance operations.