System disturbances are likely to be a key factor affecting the acceptance and safety of future automation. Since hardware and software are rarely totally reliable, humans are always required in socio-technical command and control environments such as air traffic management (ATM). Unfortunately, human-automation interaction is known to be problematic, particularly when the human assumes a monitoring or back-up role. Hence an understanding of how humans manage system disturbances is required, together with a method of looking at the problem for new systems. In this paper we outline a contextual framework of the process by which people recover from system disturbances, together with literature data and findings from 31 interviews with ATM personnel. The framework describes the context and causes of a problem, the problem itself, the effect and exposure, the recovery process, and the outcome. The framework, together with the research findings and operational experience, is also the basis for a performance prediction tool called the Recovery from Automation Failure Tool (RAFT).
