B.2. Intentional violations and intentional system violations
Fig.4. Intentional violations definition tree
The final decision tree deals with behaviour categories that are intentional violations. This indicates that individuals or group of personnel are aware that they are breaking the laws, but still insist on doing so for a variety of reasons.
As indicated in the model, the culpability for individuals increases as the system errors’ role in their violations decreases.
B.2.1 Intentional system induced violations
B.2.1.1. Situational violations
A situational violation occurs when an employee must break the rules in order to complete his assigned duties. This also means that instead of stopping the job, the employee or others proceed to do their activities anyway at the risk of safety regulations being violated.
Situational violations may also occur when there is a gap between what the rules or regulations require and what is available or possible. Lack of local resources and equipment or a lack of insight into local working conditions may increase pressure on employees to break rules to get the job done and achieve their goals.
VNA Example 1: On 30/03/2013, at Noi Bai Airport, during pushback from passenger bridge to runway, the tug slipped during movement. The connecting point between the tug and the aircraft was broken, leading to the aircraft to collide with the tug.
Cause: Due to cracking of the cement on the airfield, steel plates were temporarily installed to provide safe transportation. At the time of the pushback operation, there were heavy rain and strong wind which led to the sudden brake of the tug, causing the aircraft to drift forward, colliding with the vehicle in the process.
VNA Example 2: On international flights, numerous return flights to Vietnam were delayed, causing prolonged duty time of the flight crew beyond regulations. However, due to being abroad where there would be no replacement flight crew, if health conditions of the crew remained acceptable, the return flight would still proceed per procedures.
B.2.1.2. Organisational optimising violations
Organisational optimising violations occur when an employee commits the safety violation thinking that it is better for the company to do it that way. The violation may have been done to improve the performance of a specific division, department or to please their supervisors.
VNA Example: On 30/06/2013, an employee after forgetting to load 81 luggage pieces on flight JV8854 CXR-HAN proceeded to load that amount onto a different flight on a A321 by VNA. This incident was only reported to the relevant divisions after the flight had already taken off. This was a violation on safety & security as the luggage was loaded on a different airline – and was done to benefit the ground service entity of the airport.
B.2.1.3. Group routine violations
Group routine violations occur when a group of individuals who may or may not belong in the same division or department, collectively commit repeated safety violations.
Since this behaviour category can be both categorised in system induced violations and personal willful violations, Substitution Test may be used to determine which behaviour group an actual violation belongs to.
VNA Example 1: Although having been trained thoroughly on how to identify and handle FOD when encountered, many employees still ignore FOD on runway instead of collecting them and disposing at designated spots. This may cause potential safety risk when FODs are sucked into an engine of an aircraft, causing damage to the engine or to the aircraft tire when passed through.
VNA Example 2: Not fully filling in CFP and flight release
Despite being trained thoroughly in signing flight release and filling in all necessary information, flight crew still makes the mistakes of not providing comprehensive information. This may cause difficulties later during data gathering for incident investigation if an safety-related event occurs.
