BRIDGING MAINTENANCE ERROR TAXONOMIES AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: A STRUCTURED CRITICAL REVIEW OF AVIATION MAINTENANCE HUMAN FACTORS

Abstract

Aircraft maintenance is a critical aviation safety function since any errors can remain latent and later interact with the flight operations or inspection failures. This paper critically reviews aircraft maintenance human factors by integrating accident evidences, maintenance-error taxonomies and also proactive safety-management researches. Following the PRISMA-aligned screening process, 24 sources were retained, which included peer-reviewed studies and foundational works on error classification and organizational accident theory. On the whole, the review shows that maintenance error is rarely caused by a single unsafe act. Instead, it typically results from interactions among fatigue, workload, procedures, documentation, training, communication, supervision and organizational pressures. Furthermore, this study highlights the limitations of retrospective tools such as MEDA and HFACS-ME, and proposes a practical framework linking error reports, structured coding, recurrent factors, SMS risk registers, safety performance indicators, preventive controls and continuous monitoring. It argues that future research should focus less on creating new taxonomies and more on connecting classification with prevention.