Evaluation of dirty dozen factors affecting safety behavior in aircraft maintenance operations

This thesis aims to identify the dirty dozen factors that affect safety behavior in aircraft maintenance organizations. Known dirty dozen factors such as communication, pressure, fatigue, stress, norm, habit, distraction, teamwork, lack of resources and information, lack of self-confidence and awareness are very effective in the aircraft maintenance sector. Incomplete and faulty maintenance due to these factors cause various accidents. For this reason, it is of great importance for aircraft maintenance companies and the aviation industry to identify the dirty dozen elements and to take measures (such as detailed human factor training) that include the dirty dozen elements by learning from the accidents. Awareness of the dirty dozen elements that cause unsafe behaviors identified as a result of the analysis will further increase the awareness of aircraft maintenance personnel. In the analysis study we conducted within the scope of this thesis, using the survey method, data were obtained from 284 personnel working in different maintenance enterprises directly related to aircraft and statistical analyzes were made. More than half of the maintenance personnel we received data from have 16 years and more experience in this sector. In our study using least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), it was revealed that the most directly effective dirty dozen factor is lack of knowledge, the indirect effect is lack of self-confidence, and the psychosocial safety climate, which has a mediating effect in the indirect effect, directly affects safety behavior. This is also mentioned in the literature and confirmed by the analysis. Other factors that directly affect safety behavior are norms, resources and fatigue, while the factors that indirectly affect safety behavior are pressure, resources, communication and fatigue.