Bad Aibling Train Accident and System Thinking

Bad Aibling, 9th February 2016. Two passenger trains collide head on, traveling on a single-track line. Twelve passengers die, eighty-nine are injured. The investigation uncovers the dispatcher set the signals wrong after playing a game on his smartphone. But other contributing factors are uncovered by the investigation. The status of technical equipment, the way the dispatcher placed his warning, the low workload in general and how the train drivers reacted to back up signals. What conclusions can we draw for a world in aviation that currently suffers from a lack of traffic and sudden bursts in stress levels? A human factors perspective.