Racing Against Time: The Invisible Effect of Hurry-Up Syndrome on Aviation Accidents

DergiPark İngilizce

In the aviation industry, time pressure, operational efficiency, and performance expectations are among the critical factors that directly effect human factors. In this context, urgency, referred to in the literature as Hurry-up syndrome, is a significant psychological phenomenon that threatens flight safety by leading to perceptual narrowing, cognitive overload, and decision making errors. This study aims to examine the effect of Hurry-up syndrome on aircraft accidents and presents a case study of pilots, air traffic controllers, and aircraft maintenance technicians involved in aviation operations. This study, designed with a qualitative research approach, analyzes in detail the Comair Flight 5191, Linate Airport, and Helios Airways Flight 522 accidents, selected from national and international accident reports, using document analysis methods. The data were examined through thematic analysis within the framework of coding human errors, time pressure, communication interruptions, and prioritization errors. The findings demonstrate that Hurry-up syndrome triggers cognitive errors across all task areas, leading to misalignment of task priorities, communication breakdowns, and impaired risk perception. It also reveals that organizational-level performance expectations and cultural factors fuel the behaviors associated with Hurry-up syndrome. The study examines the relationship between human factors and safety culture from the perspective of Hurry-up syndrome. In this respect, it aims to contribute to the sustainability of safety performance in aviation by suggesting preventive strategies in the training, workload planning and time management processes of organizations.