Risk Perceptions in Agricultural Aviation

ABSTRACT

Background

Agricultural aircraft operations are an integral part of the agricultural sector. According to the National Agriculture Aviation Association (NAAA), aerial applications are conducted in all 50 states of the U.S. and account for 28% of all treated cropland. A typical application operation consists of an operator (Part 137 certificate holder, permission to apply chemicals to agricultural crops) and one or more pilots. This article explores the risk perceptions of operators (pilots with a Part 137 certificate) and non-operators (pilots without a Part 137 certificate) using data from two industry surveys.

Methods

In an effort to explain the differences between risk perceptions of operators and non-operators, a series of regression analyses were conducted controlling for age, work experience, prior encounters with hazards and history of reported injuries. In addition to exploring the aggregated perceptions across all hazards, perceptions of specific hazards were also examined.

Results

Data indicate that non-operators perceive hazards as significantly more dangerous than operators. Power lines are perceived as the most hazardous, followed by communication towers and meteorological towers. The regression results indicate that risk perception differences remain even after controlling for differences in age, work experiences, prior hazard encounters and injuries between the two groups.

Conclusions

Heterogeneity in risk perceptions within an organization can result in discrepancies over daily decision-making concerning operations. Further research is needed to identify the causal factors behind the observed differences.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural aviation
• hazards
• pilots
• risk perception
• safety

Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to the Southwest Center for Agricultural Health Injury Prevention, and Education for supporting the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclaimer

No financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of this research.

Notes

¹ A third mutually exclusive group of non-pilot operators; n = 28 in 2011 and n = 23 in 2018 has not been included in the results due to its small sample size.

² Kappa’s coefficient alpha (measure of internal consistency between the items) of 0.88 and 0.85 were observed between the items in 2018 and 2011 surveys, respectively.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Southwest Center for Agricultural Health, Injury Prevention, and Education through Cooperative Agreement # U54-OH007541 from CDC/NIOSH.