ACTIVE AND LATENT ERRORS

An error, officially, arises when a planned sequence of activities fails to achieve the intended outcome, where random external intervention is not involved.

• Latent errors have consequences that lie dormant and are difficult to recognize or foresee because of the time lag between their generation and occurrence, while active errors, which are committed at the human/system interface, have consequences that are felt almost immediately, which is how they can be detected.
• Active errors are committed by the “sharp end”, those people who are directly involved in flight operations (pilots, ATC, etc). Latent errors are usually committed by the blunt-end, people who are not directly engaged in flight operations. However, latent errors can also be made by front-line personnel. An example of a latent error committed by a pilot would be the selection of a wrong waypoint in a GPS database.