THREAT AND ERROR MANAGEMENT (TEM)
Captain Dan Maurino
Coordinator, Flight safety and Human Factors Programme - ICAO
Canadian Aviation Safety Seminar (CASS)
Vancouver, BC, 18-20 April 2005

Introduction

Threat and error management (TEM) is an overarching safety concept regarding aviation operations and human performance. TEM is not a revolutionary concept, but it evolved gradually, as a consequence of the constant drive to improve the margins of safety in aviation operations through the practical integration of Human Factors knowledge.
TEM developed as a product of the collective industry experience. Such experience fostered the recognition that past studies and, most importantly, operational consideration of human performance in aviation had largely overlooked the most important factor influencing human performance in dynamic work environments: the interaction between people and the operational context (i.e., organizational, regulatory and environmental factors) within which people discharge their operational duties.
The recognition of the influence of the operational context in human performance further led to the conclusion that study and consideration of human performance in aviation operations must not be an end in itself. In regard to the improvement of margins of safety in avaition operations, the study and consideration of human performance without context address only part of a larger issue. TEM therefore aims to provide a principled approach to the broad examination of the dynamic and challenging complexities of the operational context in human performance, for it is the influence of these complexities that generates consequences directly affecting safety.