Opening the Black Box of Human Error: Revealing the Complex Aetiology of Fratricide

Human error is often cited as a major contributing factor or cause of incidents and accidents. The ?opaque' veneer of ?blamism' that characterizes pilot/human error obscures the fact that it is comprised of a network of alliances. Through the lens of Actor Network Theory and drawing upon Systems Thinking, Complexity Theory, Psychology and the science of networks, Dr Masys describes a landscape of inherent relationality and a space of possibilities. Opening the Black Box of Human Error presents a new framework for exploring complex socio- technical systems revealing a de-centered accident aetiology residing within a network of heterogeneous elements characterized as the ?hybrid collectif' (Callon and Law, 1995). The analysis sheds light on a problem space in which it is difficult to separate human and non-human (technological) actors, highlighting as Latour (1994) argues, that ??every human interaction is socio-technical'. This work should be especially useful to professionals in Human Factors with an interest in complex socio- technical systems and accident aetiology.