Do Language Barriers Result in Aviation Maintenance Errors?

Abstract

The existence of maintenance and inspection personnel whose native language is not English suggests that language barriers may be causing performance errors. This project examines whether such errors exist, what patterns characterize these errors, what their contributing factors are and how effectively we can mitigate these errors. Any language errors would be communication errors by definition, so first we reviewed models of communication to search for characteristic error patterns. We identified two primary communication types relevant to aviation maintenance: synchronous communications (largely verbal and informal) and asynchronous communication (largely written and formal). We then analyzed several error databases (e.g. ASRS) and found that both the contributing factors and the use of recovery mechanisms were different for the two error types. Next, we analyzed survey data from 113 aircraft operators, covering their English speaking/reading abilities and use of mitigation strategies. There were significant differences across four world regions in the incidence of these two sets of factors. Neither of these data sources emphasized maintenance, so to discover more refined patterns of error, contributing factors and mitigation strategies, we conducted a series of focus groups at maintenance organizations. The patterns found were grouped, as expected, into synchronous and asynchronous. We developed classified lists of contributing and mitigating factors, which will be used in subsequent stages to quantify error incidence and test the effectiveness of mitigation strategies.