Investigating the effects of pilots' whistleblower tendencies and organizational identification on aviation safety culture within the framework of pilot peer support programs

The purpose of this multidisciplinary research, which will be a first in the world literature in both aviation and psychology sciences, is to investigate the effects of pilots' tendency to disclose information as whistleblowers, when necessary, within the framework of pilot peer support programs on organizational identification and aviation safety culture systems. The study was based on quantitative methods, and 250 pilots working in Turkey constituted the research sample. The participants were administered the "Personal Information Form", "Aviation Safety Culture Scale", "Organizational Identification Scale" and "Information Disclosure Scale". Significant and highly reliable statistical relationships were determined between the applied scales and these relationships were detailed with Pearson Correlation analysis. The data obtained showed that pilots with high organizational identification are more open to information disclosure. In addition, this tendency was found to be positively related to aviation safety culture. This reveals that safety is not only a technical issue but also directly linked to institutional climate and psychological safety. Therefore, it was concluded that practices such as Pilot Peer Support Programs should not only be considered as support mechanisms but also as strategic building blocks of organizational safety. Keywords: Pilot Peer Support Program, Whistlebolwing, Information Disclosure, Organizational Identification, Aviation Safety Culture, Clinical Psychology, Aviation Psychology, Aviation Psychologist, Pilot, Pilot Peer Support Programs