Psychological Safety in Aviation – Special Edition

Cultural Diversity and Cockpit Communication

Here’s a classic paper from 1999 – Cultural diversity and crew communication, by Fischer and Orasanu. They examined how cultural background, rank and gender influence pilots’ corrective communications in the cockpit. Analysing over 500 pilots from the U.S. and Europe, they found that captains tend to use direct commands while first officers tended to favour indirect hints, though everyone in the cockpit became more direct as risk increased.

European pilots showed a slightly greater tendency toward indirect communication than their U.S. counterparts, who were more direct, and women were more likely to provide justifications (e.g. “We are too far left of centerline for parallel approaches – correct right immediately!”) alongside requests. However, difference in status (the power gradient) had a far greater effect on voice mitigation than gender.

It’s a great paper for reminding us of the significant impact of power gradients on communication, and the effects of culture and gender on speaking up against those power gradients. There’s a lot more great stuff  in it, so give it a read 🙂

Thanks so much to Jonathan Cohen for reminding me of this paper.

Speaking up in aviation

A paper published 13 years after the above showed that cockpit crew members across all ranks remain reluctant to speak up against a power gradient even when they spot safety‐critical issues: Bienefeld and Grote (2012) in “Silence That May Kill” found that nearly half of such “latent voice” opportunities go unvoiced.

The power gradient is again quite stark: while captains report speaking up about 87% of the time, first officers and “pursers” (in charge of the cabin crew) lag behind (around 30%), and flight attendants only speak up in just over half of the cases.

They identified various barriers to speaking up, including a fear of harming working relationships, worries about punishment or being labelled as negative, and a sense that raising concerns won’t make a difference.

Silence in the Cockpit

And here’s a 2022 paper: “The Persistence of Safety Silence: How Flight Deck Microcultures Influence the Efficacy of Crew Resource Management” which builds on the previous two. First Officers and Captains alike continue to experience (or recall having experienced) “muted safety voice” and silence in the cockpit, despite CRM training. In a survey of 822 airline pilots, two-thirds reported hesitating to speak up about safety concerns 1–10 times per year when they were acting as First Officer.

Qualitative data showed that First Officers (at the lower end of the power gradient compared to Captains) often feel undervalued, micromanaged, or even subjected to biased or demeaning remarks, which undermines psychological safety and leads to safety silence. Conversely, Captains who explicitly invite feedback, use inclusive “we” language, and acknowledge their own fallibility were seen as fostering greater psychological safety. The study suggests that evolving CRM to emphasise psychological safety could bridge the gap between CRM’s ideals and cockpit reality (which is a drum we’ve been banging for a while now!).

Why Pilots Don’t Get Therapy

We’ve covered aspects of this in previous newsletters, but this is an excellent article by Jocelyn Frank about why a system meant to keep pilots from flying when they need mental health support may be leading them to avoid the very help they need.

If speaking up and asking for help means risking lost pay, being grounded for long periods, and uncertainty about whether the support system even works, it’s hardly surprising that pilots stay silent and keep flying, potentially endangering both crew and passengers.

Thanks to Steven Shorrock for sharing this.

Move Fast and Break Planes

This is a great piece by David Woods, Mike Rayo, and Shawn Pruchnicki, reflecting on the challenges that aviation safety currently faces – from budget cuts and production pressure to an increasing administrative reverence of the Silicon Valley paradigm of “move fast and break things“. Rapid experimentation and learning is great when the cost of failure is low, but in aviation, failure costs lives. 

Sleep, depression and burnout in commercial airline pilots

Cullen et al. (2024) surveyed 767 commercial pilots and found that nearly all reported their duties negatively affected their sleep, leading to a 330% increase in depression and burnout, over 100% higher exhaustion, and more than 400% greater disengagement among those with duty‐related sleep disruptions. Greater sleep deficits (up to ≥3 h less before duty) and inconsistent bed‐ and wake‐times were each strongly linked to higher burnout and exhaustion, while use of sleep aids (tablets or alcohol) corresponded to elevated distress. The authors conclude that airlines should recognise sleep disturbances as critical psychosocial hazards and embed sleep‐health management into their Safety Management Systems.

Blame and learning

The study (Mitigating work conditions that can inhibit learning from errors: Benefits of error management climate perceptions) finds that small mistakes, routine errors, strong negative emotions, and high time pressure all reduce auditors’ learning from errors. But an organisation’s “error management climate” (EMC) can reverse these effects: in a blame-oriented culture even minor mistakes are rigorously examined (though at the cost of increased fear of admitting mistakes), whereas in an open, “no-blame” culture auditors sustain learning and continue to reflect even under heavy time pressure.

This suggests that while a strictly punitive, blame-focused environment may force attention on more errors (including very small ones), fostering an open, psychologically safe climate ultimately promotes more genuine, ongoing learning and resilience, turning mistakes into constructive growth opportunities rather than occasions for punishment.