Prioritization of Voluntary Silence Criteria in Military Aviation for The Sustainability or Safety Superiority

<p>Since aviation is one of the sectors involving high levels of risk in today’s world, the presence of a safe working environment is crucial for both flight operations and aircraft maintenance services. Thus, it is vital for aviation workers to be aware of unsafe situations as well as dangers and potential risks in order to create a safe environment and establish an organizational safety culture. One of the fundamental components of such awareness is information, and voluntary reporting of this information as well as unsafe situations by aviation employees is one of the most important ways for managers to access this information. Reporting in aviation safety is essential in terms of data collection, analysis and sharing information among aviation employees while evaluating accidents, potential risks and dangers. Otherwise, non-reporting behavior might result in unnoticed and unforeseen but preventable accidents. The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons of non-reporting behavior of military aviation line maintenance staff and offer suggestions to encourage voluntary reporting behavior that might contribute to creating an effective flight and ground safety culture. The study uses a hybrid research method to achieve this purpose. The data obtained from the related literature and unstructured interviews conducted with the expert personnel were measured by using a 5-point Likert scale and the reasons with a mean of 3 and above were evaluated together with a team of 7 in a consensus, and later, non-reporting criteria of military aviation line maintenance personnel were ranked in terms of importance by using the AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process) method. According to the results of the study, the most important factors leading to voluntary silence (non-reporting) behavior of military aviation maintenance personnel are fear of being punished (the criteria weight=0.25), communication problems / previous reporting experiences (the criteria weight for both=0.17), inconsistencies of the organization / lack of trust in the organization/not receiving feedback / attitudes and behaviors of managers/chiefs (the criteria weight for each=0.12). Based on these findings, the researcher made some suggestions to create an effective flight and ground safety culture.</p>