No description available.

Public international air law is not in itself an autonomous system. It follows the legal principles and notions applicable to public international law in general. The principle of good faith performance or enforcement of a contract, in particular, emphasizes faithfulness to an agreed common purpose and consistency with the justified expectations of the other party unless an expressed intention to the contrary has been declared. / By signing the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, all 185 Contracting States agreed to certain principles and arrangements in order that international civil aviation could be developed in a safe and orderly manner. They undertook, inter alia, to collaborate in securing the highest practicable degree of uniformity in all matters in which such uniformity could facilitate and improve air navigation. Thus, they all agreed to a common purpose and to the means for ensuring it. / With the presence of several regulatory levels, namely, national, regional and international, and given the challenges of the new century in parallel with the increased sophistication of civil aviation systems, safety in air transportation requires that it be a shared responsibility. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

No description available.

No description available.

Aviation and the internet are two conveniences without which the modern world would almost grind to a halt given our current dependence levels (on them). If both were to suddenly vanish, mankind would be thrown back to the late 19th century reminiscent of a world which was once a smaller place. / Aviation plays a critical role in our daily life transporting man and material over vast distances in a relatively short period of time. A vital cog in this wheel is the airport that 'facilitates' the safe loading, unloading, take-off and landing of aircraft. / For some time now, aircraft have been the target of various terrorist groups and militant factions seeking to make a point to the world in the most dramatic fashion possible. To maintain the security of civil aviation, laws have been promulgated (both nationally and internationally) to ensure that the perpetrators (of the crime) when caught, will be adequately punished and in a manner that will deter others from committing crimes against civil aviation. However this law-making process (in large part initiated by the International Civil Aviation Organization) has not sufficiently addressed airports and the security therein. / This paper seeks to examine---and in some cases suggest improvements to---aviation security laws at large, with a specific emphasis on airports. It is believed that a more comprehensive set of laws governing aviation security would result in greater efficacy of airport security procedures thus reducing the need for prospective judicial intervention and concomitant lengthy court proceedings.

Certain new realities, such as the liberalisation of the skies and increased air traffic in South Africa are bound to test the existing safety strategies, regulations and maintenance of standards. In order to obtain a picture of the future architecture and the standard of aviation safety in South Africa, the mental models of stakeholders in the industry were investigated in a qualitative, study. A qualitative interpretive research design was followed. The research question was: What are the mental models of key stakeholders in the aviation safety environment and how does this need to be accounted for in the development of an aviation safety strategy, in a Southern African context? In order to obtain a broad spectrum of the social constructs of key stakeholders with regard to aviation safety and to enhance the trustworthiness of the information, three research interventions or information gathering processes were applied. These were the individual interviews through Kelly’s Repertory Grid (Rep Grid) technique, outcomes analysis of the job of a safety manager through a focus group process and a scenario development process (in this sequence). Data was then considered in relation to certain theoretical perspectives, as well as realities in the aviation safety environment in Southern Africa. The study identified pertinent gaps between the mental models elicited from research participants during individual interventions and those elicited during group interventions, as well as a disparity between their mental models and the demands of the aviation safety environment in Southern Africa and the international community. The participants’ individual mental models (or theories in use) focused more on micro systems and symptoms of “unsafety” than the broader systemic relationships and problems. Tendencies towards silo-thinking and single loop learning were indicated. In contrast with the individual mental models, the collective or shared mental models of the participants, elicited during group interventions, represented a more systemic view and a more effective or desired model with regard to aviation safety. The broader system together with its interrelated elements, entropy and unpredictability, as well as critical elements that need to be accounted for in an aviation strategy, were identified. These were, amongst others, effective coordinated regulation and safety oversight on national and regional level; risk management; international recognition; legitimacy; authorisation and market access for airlines; maintenance of standards; international cooperation; and training. It also became clear that safety cannot be understood and managed by focussing on Newtonian laws without a proper appreciation of human factors. Other important perspectives that were identified are the need for the establishment of a study-field for aviation psychology and effective human factors training; as well as the need for a regional regulatory function in Southern Africa. / Prof.J.S Uys

No description available.

No description available.

Task Management (TM) refers to the function in which the human operator manages his/her available sensory and mental resources in a dynamic, complex, safety-critical environment in order to accomplish the multiple tasks competing for a limited quantity of attention. There is reason to believe that the level of automation on the commercial aircraft flight deck may effect TM, however to date there has been little research that directly addresses this effect. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to begin evaluating the relationship between TM of commercial airline pilots and the level of automation on the flight deck by determining how automation affects the frequency of Task Prioritization errors as reported in Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incident reports. The secondary objective of this study was to create a methodology that modeled an effective way to use ASRS incident report data in an inferential analysis. Two samples of ASRS incident reports were compared. The first sample was composed of 210 incident reports submitted by pilots flying advanced technology aircraft and the second sample was composed of 210 incident reports submitted by pilots flying traditional technology aircraft. To help avoid confounding effects, the two samples were further divided into three sub-samples each made up of 70 reports submitted during a specified time period: 1988-1989, 1990-1991, and 1992-1993. Each incident report was analyzed using an incident analysis form designed specifically for this study. This form allowed the analyst to classify the incident report as either containing a Task Prioritization error or not based on the narrative of the report. Twenty-eight incident reports from the advanced technology sample and 15 from the traditional technology sample were classified as containing Task Prioritization errors. Using the Chi Square (x��) test and a significance level of 0.05, this difference was found to be statistically significant. / Graduation date: 1998

Statistically, travel by air is one of the safest forms of transportation. Yet we continue to experience aviation tragedies. Do we fully understand flight safety or is there another way of looking at the problem? In this work a new way of approaching the question of flight safety is developed, justified and illustrated. Traditional methods are shown to be insufficient for a full understanding of flight safety. They do not provide an adequate explanation of the context of aviation safety. The issue is approached from a new perspective with a methodology based on a philosophical understanding of explanation. For the examination of the context of aviation safety traditional modes of scientific explanation are rejected in favor of a paradigmatic explanation. A framework for explaining the context of accidents and safety, in general, is synthesized from four broad paradigms which characterize its patterned nature: the cognitive paradigm, the paradigm of normal accidents, the paradigm of technology, and the paradigm of organizational complexes. The development of the framework is supported by a wide diversity of literature from philosophers, psychologists, social scientists and engineers. It is explicated with numerous examples throughout. The framework is then compared with the traditional mode of explanation through an extensive pedagogical case-study of a specific accident. The new framework is complementary to traditional approaches and new insights are pointed up. Finally, some broad recommendations are made for the community of professionals concerned with improving aviation safety. / Graduation date: 1991