Introduction

“Recovery from Failure” is a phrase used to describe a need in aviation to continue real-time operations to a safe conclusion despite a critical part of a system (technical, procedural, or human) failing, sometimes at the most crucial time.

Continuation of operations to a safe conclusion can be guaranteed, or at least facilitated, through system design, redundancy, back-up systems or procedures, safety nets, and even accurate fault diagnoses and timely, correct responses by human operators. Many of these features are built-in as system defences, but, as the subject concerns recovery from failure (or after failure) these features can be considered as “containment” measures.

The Bow Tie diagram above can be used to represent this concept. Consider the hazardous event as the Failure. Controls prior to Failure can be considered Safety Defences (which themselves may have failed). Controls post Failure can be considered Containment Measures which facilitate Recovery and a safe (or safer) outcome.