In September 2007 EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency)implemented a new airworthiness rule (CS 25.1302) that mandates for the error tolerant design of flight deck equipment on all new large commercial aircraft. The stimulus for the rule was the 1996 FAA Human Factors Team Report on the Interfaces between Flightcrews and Modern Flight Deck Systems, which was commissioned as a result of several accidents occurring to new (at the time) technology airliners. This report made many criticisms of the flight deck interfaces and design processes, including a lack of human factors expertise on design teams and too much emphasis being placed on the physical ergonomics of the pilot’s workplace and not on the cognitive ergonomics. This paper provides a very brief overview of the concept of design-induced error and the background to the rule, before providing a brief summary of the acceptable means of compliance with the regulation and providing a brief critique of the criteria of the related
measurement instruments and methods available.