This experience transformed how cockpits are designed. Chapanis and others came to realize that many pilot errors were really cockpit errors. Until then, the focus had been on training pilots and ensuring alertness, on producing “excellent pilots” who make few mistakes. But Chapanis’s conclusions changed this. Of course pilots must be trained; of course you must select for the best. But no matter how well you train them or pick them, they will make mistakes, especially if put in confounding contexts.
