The FAA's "Dirty Dozen" and What It Means for Your Business's IT

The FAA's "Dirty Dozen" and What It Means for Your Business's IT

The Federal Aviation Administration has spent decades studying why things go wrong. Their conclusion: 80% of maintenance mistakes come down to human error. And they've identified the 12 most common causes — what they call the "dirty dozen."

Planes and servers aren't the same thing. But the human behaviors that bring down a 737 are the same ones that bring down your network. Here are the three we see most often.

1. Lack of Resources

A Piper Navajo crew noticed an intermittent door warning light. The part to fix it was on backorder. The plane went back into service anyway. Weeks later, the co-pilot went to check a passenger complaint about a draft — and the door blew open. He was left dangling 3,000 feet in the air by his feet.

One backordered part. One near-fatality.

In IT, under-resourced environments look less dramatic but cost just as much. Consumer-grade servers supporting 60 employees. Workstations so old they bottleneck every task. Not enough engineering coverage to stay ahead of issues. Nothing fails all at once — it just quietly drains hundreds of hours a year in lost productivity and frustrated staff.

The fix isn't buying everything at once. It's planning ahead and making sure what you have is actually up to the job.

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2. Norms

In the 1970s, American Airlines ground crews started changing DC10 engines with forklifts. It wasn't protocol — but it saved 12 hours per engine. Nobody meant any harm. It just became the way things were done.

On May 25, 1979, Flight 191 lost an engine on takeoff. All 273 people on board died.

IT norms are quieter but just as dangerous. Passwords on sticky notes. Sharing login credentials because it's easier. Ignoring the slow machine because it's always been slow. These habits don't feel like risks — until they are.

Documented processes and clear IT policies aren't bureaucracy. They're the thing that keeps a small bad habit from becoming a breach.

3. Lack of Communication

The FAA puts this one first for a reason. Thirty-seven percent of human error incidents involve a communication breakdown somewhere in the chain.

Think about the last time your business went through a technology change. Did your team know it was coming? Did they get instructions before day one, or were they handed a new system on a Monday morning with no context?

Poor communication around IT changes creates confusion, workarounds, and resentment. Good communication — clear, written, confirmed, followed up — is what separates a smooth transition from a week of support tickets.

The common thread

Lack of resources. Bad habits. Broken communication. None of these are technical failures. They're human ones. And they're all preventable with the right systems and the right partner paying attention.

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Your IT environment shouldn't require heroics to stay stable. See how Velo keeps businesses running quietly — velomethod.com/managed-it-services