Impact of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) on air safety: Evidence from Airbus® TCAS/ROSE simulators

Escolà -Gascón, à Lex, Neil Dagnall, Andrew Denovan and Kenneth Drinkwater

Journal of Air Transport Management, 2024, vol. 119, issue C

Abstract: The present research was designed to provide evidence into why and when Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) occur and pose a threat to aviation safety. Specifically, the goal was to understand how causal illusions interact with perceptual biases with and without irrational reasoning. A total of 408 airline pilots participated in an experiment using Airbus® aircraft TCAS/ROSE simulators. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM), controlling for the effects of fatigue and flight hours. Results indicated that causal illusions were 82.4% predictive of UAP sightings only when magical inference was present. Our experimental evidence shows that UAPs may be explained as cognitive biases and would pose a threat to aviation safety if pilots—or even aircraft AIs—were to detect them in an irrational way (e.g., as alien objects). A novel theorization that integrates major perception, clinical, and cognition models is offered. Additionally, the authors discuss the implications for aviation safety and determine when a UAP sighting may pose a real danger on a commercial flight.

Keywords: Causal illusions; Unidentified Aerial Phenomena; Cognitive bias; Aviation safety; Airbus® simulators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699724000826
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jaitra:v:119:y:2024:i:c:s0969699724000826

DOI: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2024.102617

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Air Transport Management is currently edited by Anne Graham

More articles in Journal of Air Transport Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().