Study of Cultural Influences on Aircraft Accident Causation Analysis: Case of Indonesian vs US Aircraft Accidents

Recent studies found that culture as part of the socio-cultural lens of human factors has a significant role in aviation safety, not limited to aircraft accident causation. This research aims to employ the Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) model to examine the effect of cultural influence on aviation accident causation analysis, in accordance with the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS), with a focus on cases of Indonesian aviation accidents and US aviation accidents. This qualitative research effort evaluated six cases of Indonesian aviation accidents and six cases of US aviation accidents in the period between 2002 through 2022. The analysis used the preliminary HFACS results developed by the author and further analyzed using semi-structured interviews with six Indonesian aviation experts and four US experts to examine the existence of cultural influence on the accidents. Thematic content analysis was utilized to analyze cultural influence on aircraft accident causation cases based on participants’ narration. The result covered the effect of the cultural differences between Indonesia and the US, including the characteristics of power distance, in-group collectivism, and performance orientation on HFACS analysis, which could logically lead to a more comprehensive analysis of issues at the level of unsafe supervision and organizational influences, and could result in a recommendation regarding future enhancement to the HFACS model.