Related Resources

This section provides additional course resources including accident reports, related news articles on human factors, and supplemental readings.

Accident Reports

• 1994 Nagoya Airport, China Airlines A300 (PDF - 44.12MB)
• 1995 Cali Colombia, American Airlines B757
• 1996 Ariane 5 Flight 501 accident report
• 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter (PDF)
• 1999 Mars Polar Lander report part 1
• 2004 Woodley Park DC, DC Metro (PDF - 2.91MB)
• 2006 Lexington Kentucky, Comair (PDF - 3.39MB)
• 2007 Minneapolis, Highway Bridge (PDF - 4.2MB)
• 2009 Hudson river, midair collision (Helicopter and small plane) (PDF - 1.3MB)
• 2009 Schiphol Airport, Turkish Airlines B737 (PDF - 2.4MB)

Human Factors News Articles

• Hydraulic failure causes JetBlue scare
• Airbuses suffer cockpit power failure, await fixes
• NY near miss shows need for improved controllers and equipment
• Patient died at New York VA Hospital after alarm was ignored
• EHR Event of the Month: "Betrayed by Your Allies"

Supplemental Readings

• The oil disaster is about human, not system, failure
  Article for hindsight bias exercise.
• NTSB says fan-shaft fracture caused 787 engine failure
  This is an example of a real (and recent) news story describing some fault tolerant / fail safe design features for aircraft designs (will be covered in weeks 3–4).
• Robert Follensbee notes
• Roberts, N. H., and William E. Vesely. Fault Tree Handbook (PDF - 8.4MB). Government Printing Office, 1981.
  Recommended excerpts, Chapter IV "The Basic Elements of a Fault Tree", and Chapter V "Fault Tree Construction Fundamentals: Failure Mechanism, Failure Mode and Failure Effect."
• Savage, Sam. "Flaw of Averages."
• Apostolakis, George E. "How Useful is Quantitative Risk Assessment?" Risk Analysis 24, no. 3 (2004): 515–20.
  Perspective of a well-known advocate of quantitative methods (and former MIT professor).
• The Matterhorn Bobsled Ride: General Description (PDF)