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Boeing proactively conducted 777-9 engine vibration testing simulations to evaluate pilot responses.
Nick Patrick’s role is new. But Boeing’s first functional chief engineer of human factors sees his primary tasks as harmonizing, codifying and strengthening existing functions, not introducing additional ones.
“When you look at the enterprise in general, we’ve got [human factors] people in ones and twos and 10s scattered around the organization, whose home has traditionally been in the systems engineering function or environmental health and safety,” Patrick told Aviation Week during a recent sit-down in Everett, Washington. “The purpose of this new human factors function is to bring them all under one umbrella—be consistent in the way we recruit, onboard and train people; and be consistent in the standards we ask them to apply when they do design work.”
Boeing’s expertise in that function helped establish the company as the discipline’s “gold standard with pilots, engineers, product support and human factors specialists,” an expert panel of seasoned aerospace executives wrote in a 2024 review of its safety practices. But that reputation was forged half a century ago, with the common type rating across the Boeing 757 and 767 playing a large role.
- Airframer prioritizes a safety culture shift
- Goals include developing and unifying standards
A lot has changed in five decades. While Boeing was once concentrated and headquartered near Seattle, acquisitions and strategic decisions have expanded its engineering and manufacturing operations to multiple U.S. locations. That splintering contributed to a decline in human factors’ “role . . . and influence” within the airframer, the panel concluded in its February 2024 final report.
Among the consequences: not enough critical eyes on the Boeing 737 MAX’s design and development. The aircraft’s poorly designed flight control system software contributed to two fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 (AW&ST Nov. 23-Dec. 6, 2020, p. 16). The resulting crisis triggered a series of internal reviews and external investigations, including the expert panel’s formation under a 2020 congressional mandate.
Among the panel’s concerns was Boeing’s “inadequate human factors consideration commensurate to its importance to aviation safety,” the report stated. Reversing this was one of the company’s priorities as part of a larger safety culture overhaul.
Company leadership told the panel it planned to “establish human factors as a formal, stand-alone and highly prioritized technical discipline and design practice within Boeing,” the report noted.
Patrick, hired seven months after the report was made public, is the new discipline’s point person. “I have to turn human factors from a small ‘f’ function at Boeing to a capital ‘F’ function at Boeing,” he said. “That’s my challenge.”
The first major task—establishing a formal human factors functional chief engineer’s office—is largely done. “The remainder of the job is about harmonizing, standardizing the practice of human factors around Boeing, across the business units, across the various programs and across the people,” he said.
Patrick began his career as a Boeing flight deck systems and human factors engineer before spending nearly 15 years at NASA, where he flew on two space shuttle missions to the International Space Station. He worked on the shuttle cockpit avionics upgrade program and led the team that defined the human systems integration requirements for the Orion capsule. He also spent nearly a decade at Blue Origin and flew as a 737 first officer for Alaska Airlines.
That background gives him a broad perspective and deep understanding of how human factors affect every aspect of an aircraft’s life cycle.
“Every product we make has a number of human touchpoints, from the very beginning in the design phase to assembly, test [and] use,” Patrick said. “There are so many human customers for our products that it’s easy to make the argument that human-centered design is crucial.”
Aircraft development is by nature a long process. This often means human-factors-driven improvements can take years to reach end users.
But signs of a shift within Boeing are evident. The 777-9 test program incorporated simulations to evaluate pilot reactions to severe vibrations caused by engine fan blade failures. Those trials—one in a full flight simulator and one using a special Seattle-area vibration lab—involved Boeing and FAA pilots. The purpose: To evaluate whether pilots could recognize which engine had failed and run the associated checklist.
The vibration tests, not required for certification, were Boeing’s first since it developed the original 777 30 years ago. More recent programs, such as the 787, have relied on computer modeling to demonstrate similarity to approved designs. Boeing is not abandoning models to help validate assumptions. But its safety culture shift will include more human-factors-related data gathering and real world validation throughout product development.
“We need to make sure that our future designs keep pilots in the loop . . . that they have the tools, the training and the ability to stay in the loop,” Patrick said. “It’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to design it into the aircraft.”
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