Definition
A method of classifying aviation accidents by sorting their causes into broad categories such as pilot error, mechanical failure, weather, or environmental factors. This approach focuses on identifying what failed and assigning each contributing cause to a labeled category, rather than examining the deeper organizational, human-factors, or systemic conditions that produced the failure.
Plain English
It is the older, simpler way of investigating accidents: figure out what went wrong and put it in a category like 'pilot error' or 'engine failure.' It tells you what happened, but not why the bigger system allowed it to happen.
Context Anchor
Seen in the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook when discussing how accident causes have traditionally been studied and why instructors should also teach pilots to manage risk before an accident happens.
Derivation
Taxonomy comes from the Greek 'taxis' (arrangement) and 'nomia' (method or law) — literally, a method of arranging things into groups. In accident work, it means the system used to sort and label causes.
Why Pilots Care
Understanding the limits of this older approach helps instructors and pilots see why modern training emphasizes human factors, decision-making, and system-level thinking — areas the traditional taxonomy tends to overlook.
Analogy
It is like sorting many incident reports into labeled folders. The folders do not explain everything by themselves, but they help people see repeated patterns.
Intuition Check
Do not read this as the actual accident investigation. Here, taxonomy means the category system used to organize what the investigation found.
Example Sentence 1
Under the traditional accident investigation taxonomy, the crash was classified simply as pilot error, without examining the fatigue and scheduling pressures that contributed to it.
Example Sentence 2
Using the traditional accident investigation taxonomy, the team listed the accident as pilot error without looking for other factors.