Those of us in the aviation profession, whether we maintain the aircraft or fly them, have all heard of Human Factors at some point in our career.  But do we actually know what Human Factors is?  Or, is it, what Human Factors are? 

A series of serious and sometimes fatal incidents involving Boeing aircraft in recent years – particularly the 737 Max disasters in Ethiopia and Indonesia – has seen the reputation of this once great American business almost completely destroyed.

This year marks the 21^st anniversary of an anonymous internal memo from Boeing engineers who wanted to state their human factors concerns and make their company’s damaging practices public knowledge.