Flight Deck Crew Alerting: Problems and Concerns as Reported in the Aviation Safety Reporting System

NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database was searched to identify problems in flight deck alerting design methodologies that should be considered during the design of data link alerting systems. Detailed analysis identified six major crew alerting problem areas: Distraction of Alert, Missed Alerts, Lack of Alerts, Alert Inhibit Logic, Non-Distinct Alerts, and Multiple Alerts. The problem areas resulted in a variety of flight technical errors (e.g., altitude and heading deviations, aborted takeoffs). These results are presented, and any pertinence to the design of a data link crew alerting scheme is cited.