A context for error: using conversation analysis to represent and analyse recorded voice data

Recorded voice data, such as from cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) or air traffic control tapes, can be an important source of evidence for accident investigation, as well as for human factors research. During accident investigations, the extent of analysis of these recordings depends on the nature and severity of the accident. However, most of the analysis has been based on subjective interpretation rather than the use of systematic methods, particularly when dealing with the analysis of crew interactions. This paper presents a methodology, called conversation analysis, which involves the detailed examination of interaction as it develops moment-to-moment between the participants, in context. Conversation analysis uses highly detailed and revealing transcriptions of recorded voice (or video) data that can allow deeper analyses of how people interact. The paper uses conversation analysis as a technique to examine CVR data from an accident flight. The focus accident was a controlled flight into terrain event involving an Israel Aircraft Industries Westwind 1124 jet aircraft, which impacted terrain near Alice Springs on 27 April 1995. The conversation analysis methodology provided a structured means for analysing the crew’s interaction. The error that contributed directly to the accident, an incorrectly set minimum descent altitude, can be seen as not the responsibility of one pilot, but at least in part as the outcome of the way the two pilots communicated with one another. The analysis considered the following aspects in particular: the significance of overlapping talk (when both pilots spoke at the same time); the copilot’s silence after talk from the pilot in command; instances when the pilot in command corrected (repaired) the copilot’s talk or conduct; and lastly, a range of aspects for how the two pilots communicated to perform routine tasks. In summary, the conversation analysis methodology showed how specific processes of interaction between crew members helped to create a working environment conducive to making, and not detecting, an error. By not interacting to work together as a team, pilots can create a context for error. When analysing recorded voice data, and especially for understanding instances of human error, often a great deal rests on investigators’ or analysts’ interpretations of what a pilot said, or what was meant by what was said, or how talk was understood, or how the mood in the cockpit or the pilots’ working relationship could best be described. Conversation analysis can be a tool for making such interpretations.This report was commisioned by Australian Transport Safety Burea

Using conversation analysis in data-driven aviation training with large-scale qualitative datasets

This paper contributes to a growing body of work related to the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM) by studying the primary flight instruction environment to create training interventions related to radio communications and flight instruction practices. Framed in the context of conversation analysis, an approach to the detailed analysis of naturally occurring interaction, the large-scale, long-duration qualitative audio/video data collection and coding methodology is discussed, followed by trends identified in the ongoing study. The concept of CARM “trainables” are discussed with examples. The study shows that large-scale qualitative datasets may be leveraged to produce valuable data-driven training interventions

Beyond the black box: Talk-in-interaction in the airline cockpit.

This is the first and only study of the interaction between pilots in the cockpit of commercial aircraft. It examines, in close detail, the communication that pilots engage in with one another and with other parties, such as traffic controllers, as they perform the routine tasks involved in flying an aircraft. It also makes an important contribution to literature on work and language by addressing one of the most highly technological settings there is: the aircraft cockpit. Using data taken from audio and video recordings of pilots talking in aircraft cockpits, it draws on the analytical approaches of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to analyse their task-related communications. It shows that although the tasks performed by pilots may be 'routine', the communications in and through which they are managed are artful accomplishments

"You Are Well Clear of Friendlies": Diagnostic Error and Cooperative Work in an Iraq War Friendly Fire Incident

This paper considers diagnostic error in cooperative work as a contributing factor for a military 'friendly fire' incident. It emphasises aspects of the moment-to-moment sequential organisation of interaction, and turn design, to explore the significanc