Workshop participants found human performance as an ongoing safety issue in recreational aviation. Key concerns included:
- fatigue
- stress
- situational awareness
- fitness to fly
- decision-making.
Participants said that some pilots do not always recognise the effects of fatigue on their performance. This may be a greater risk for ageing pilots and those who fly infrequently. They also found dehydration, workload and long flights as contributing factors.
Participants also discussed the growing use of cockpit technology, such as:
- electronic flight bags (EFBs)
- moving maps
- integrated avionics.
While these tools can improve safety, they can also distract pilots from maintaining an effective lookout.
Weather-related decision-making remained an ongoing concern. Participants reported examples of pilots continuing flights in deteriorating weather or accepting reduced terrain clearance margins.
What you can do
You can reduce human performance risks by:
- assessing fitness to fly before every flight
- managing fatigue and staying hydrated, especially on longer flights
- making conservative weather decisions and setting clear personal limits
- maintaining flying proficiency and recency
- using threat and error management principles during training and operations
- keeping an effective lookout when using cockpit technology
- encouraging open discussions about stress, workload and safety concerns.
Safety discussions and training can also help pilots recognise common risks such as:
- fatigue
- weather traps
- decision-making under pressure
- over reliance on technology.
What we have done
We support safety education on human performance, pilot wellbeing and decision-making.
Current activities include:
- maintaining human factors guidance and educational resources
- supporting fatigue awareness initiatives
- delivering safety seminars, webinars and education campaigns
- promoting threat and error management in training
- monitoring occurrence data related to human performance and weather-related events.
We have also updated the human factors resource kit to improve access to practical safety education materials.
More information about human factors and safety behaviours is available from: