IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v137y2015icp101-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Software in military aviation and drone mishaps: Analysis and recommendations for the investigation process

Author

Listed:
  • Foreman, Veronica L.
  • Favaró, Francesca M.
  • Saleh, Joseph H.
  • Johnson, Christopher W.

Abstract

Software plays a central role in military systems. It is also an important factor in many recent incidents and accidents. A safety gap is growing between our software-intensive technological capabilities and our understanding of the ways they can fail or lead to accidents. Traditional forms of accident investigation are poorly equipped to trace the sources of software failure, for instance software does not age in the same way that hardware components fail over time. As such, it can be hard to trace the causes of software failure or mechanisms by which it contributed to accidents back into the development and procurement chain to address the deeper, systemic causes of potential accidents. To identify some of these failure mechanisms, we examined the database of the Air Force Accident Investigation Board (AIB) and analyzed mishaps in which software was involved. Although we have chosen to focus on military aviation, many of the insights also apply to civil aviation. Our analysis led to several results and recommendations. Some were specific and related for example to specific shortcomings in the testing and validation of particular avionic subsystems. Others were broader in scope: for instance, we challenged both the investigation process (aspects of) and the findings in several cases, and we provided recommendations, technical and organizational, for improvements. We also identified important safety blind spots in the investigations with respect to software, whose contribution to the escalation of the adverse events was often neglected in the accident reports. These blind spots, we argued, constitute an important missed learning opportunity for improving accident prevention, and it is especially unfortunate at a time when Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) are being integrated into the National Airspace. Our findings support the growing recognition that the traditional notion of software failure as non-compliance with requirements is too limited to capture the diversity of roles that software plays in military and civil aviation accidents. The identification of several specific mechanisms by which software contributes to accidents can help populate a library of patterns and triggers of software contributions to adverse events, a library which in turn can be used to help guide better software development, better coding, and better testing to avoid or eliminate these particular patterns and triggers. Finally, we strongly argue for the examination of software’s causal role in accident investigations, the inclusion of a section on the subject in the accident reports, and the participation of software experts in accident investigations.

Suggested Citation

  • Foreman, Veronica L. & Favaró, Francesca M. & Saleh, Joseph H. & Johnson, Christopher W., 2015. "Software in military aviation and drone mishaps: Analysis and recommendations for the investigation process," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 101-111.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:137:y:2015:i:c:p:101-111
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2015.01.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832015000083
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2015.01.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saleh, J.H. & Marais, K.B. & Bakolas, E. & Cowlagi, R.V., 2010. "Highlights from the literature on accident causation and system safety: Review of major ideas, recent contributions, and challenges," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1105-1116.
    2. Saleh, Joseph H. & Saltmarsh, Elizabeth A. & Favarò, Francesca M. & Brevault, Loïc, 2013. "Accident precursors, near misses, and warning signs: Critical review and formal definitions within the framework of Discrete Event Systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 148-154.
    3. Herrera, I.A. & Woltjer, R., 2010. "Comparing a multi-linear (STEP) and systemic (FRAM) method for accident analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 95(12), pages 1269-1275.
    4. Karlene H. Roberts, 1990. "Some Characteristics of One Type of High Reliability Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 160-176, May.
    5. Favarò, Francesca M. & Jackson, David W. & Saleh, Joseph H. & Mavris, Dimitri N., 2013. "Software contributions to aircraft adverse events: Case studies and analyses of recurrent accident patterns and failure mechanisms," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 131-142.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Favarò, Francesca M. & Saleh, Joseph H., 2018. "Application of temporal logic for safety supervisory control and model-based hazard monitoring," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 166-178.
    2. D'Anniballe, A. & Silva, J. & Marzocca, P. & Ceruti, A., 2020. "The role of augmented reality in air accident investigation and practitioner training," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    3. Elena Zaitseva & Vitaly Levashenko & Ravil Mukhamediev & Nicolae Brinzei & Andriy Kovalenko & Adilkhan Symagulov, 2023. "Review of Reliability Assessment Methods of Drone Swarm (Fleet) and a New Importance Evaluation Based Method of Drone Swarm Structure Analysis," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-26, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. S. Busby & A. M. Collins, 2014. "Organizational Sensemaking About Risk Controls: The Case of Offshore Hydrocarbons Production," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(9), pages 1738-1752, September.
    2. Wu, Chao & Huang, Lang, 2019. "A new accident causation model based on information flow and its application in Tianjin Port fire and explosion accident," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 73-85.
    3. Favarò, Francesca M. & Saleh, Joseph H., 2016. "Toward risk assessment 2.0: Safety supervisory control and model-based hazard monitoring for risk-informed safety interventions," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 316-330.
    4. Raghvendra V. Cowlagi & Joseph H. Saleh, 2013. "Coordinability and Consistency in Accident Causation and Prevention: Formal System Theoretic Concepts for Safety in Multilevel Systems," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(3), pages 420-433, March.
    5. Favarò, Francesca M. & Jackson, David W. & Saleh, Joseph H. & Mavris, Dimitri N., 2013. "Software contributions to aircraft adverse events: Case studies and analyses of recurrent accident patterns and failure mechanisms," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 131-142.
    6. Hazhir Rahmandad & Nelson Repenning, 2016. "Capability erosion dynamics," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 649-672, April.
    7. Charles Sabel & Gary Herrigel & Peer Hull Kristensen, 2018. "Regulation under uncertainty: The coevolution of industry and regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 371-394, September.
    8. Daniel Nunan & Marialaura Di Domenico, 2017. "Big Data: A Normal Accident Waiting to Happen?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 481-491, October.
    9. Favarò, Francesca M. & Saleh, Joseph H., 2018. "Application of temporal logic for safety supervisory control and model-based hazard monitoring," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 166-178.
    10. Zhiang (John) Lin & Xia Zhao & Kiran M. Ismail & Kathleen M. Carley, 2006. "Organizational Design and Restructuring in Response to Crises: Lessons from Computational Modeling and Real-World Cases," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(5), pages 598-618, October.
    11. Wang, Fan & Li, Heng & Dong, Chao, 2021. "Understanding near-miss count data on construction sites using greedy D-vine copula marginal regression," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    12. Xie, Shuyi & Huang, Zimeng & Wu, Gang & Luo, Jinheng & Li, Lifeng & Ma, Weifeng & Wang, Bohong, 2024. "Combining precursor and Cloud Leaky noisy-OR logic gate Bayesian network for dynamic probability analysis of major accidents in the oil depots," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    13. Patriarca, Riccardo & Bergström, Johan & Di Gravio, Giulio, 2017. "Defining the functional resonance analysis space: Combining Abstraction Hierarchy and FRAM," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 34-46.
    14. Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2021. "Regression to the tail: Why the Olympics blow up," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 233-260, March.
    15. Mohammadnazar, Hojat & Pulkkinen, Mirja & Ghanbari, Hadi, 2019. "A root cause analysis method for preventing erratic behavior in software development: PEBA," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    16. Zhou, Di & Zhuang, Xiao & Zuo, Hongfu & Cai, Jing & Zhao, Xufeng & Xiang, Jiawei, 2022. "A model fusion strategy for identifying aircraft risk using CNN and Att-BiLSTM," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    17. Vincent Giolito, 2015. "Managing organizational errors: Three theoretical lenses on a bank collapse," Working Papers CEB 15-033, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Bucher, Silke & Jäger, Urs P. & Cardoza, Guillermo, 2016. "FUNDES: Becoming a strategically mindful nonprofit," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4489-4498.
    19. Steen, Riana & Ferreira, Pedro, 2020. "Resilient flood-risk management at the municipal level through the lens of the Functional Resonance Analysis Model," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    20. Andriulo, S. & Gnoni, M.G., 2014. "Measuring the effectiveness of a near-miss management system: An application in an automotive firm supplier," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 154-162.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:137:y:2015:i:c:p:101-111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.