Virtual Simulation for Flight Emergency Water Landing: A Usability Assessment

Abstract

Flight courses are necessary especially for individuals who are common with flights or frequently travel by flight such as pilots, cabin crews, and passengers. These courses commonly consist of a few modules such as safety and emergency modules which could occur at any time without expecting it. In relation to that, there are several types of emergency landings including force landing, precaution landing, and ditching. Ditching is a forced or precautionary landing on water, which rarely happens, especially in Malaysia. As frequent travellers discover repeated pre-flight safety briefings to be uninteresting and exhausting, a large portion of travellers stay inattentive during such briefings. Additionally, emergency situations can be a difficult condition to be imagined especially by any individual who has not experience it. Therefore, Virtual Reality (VR), a computer-generated environment, can be utilised to simulate a real-world environment. By using VR, we can exterminate the potential risks to the participants during training or real situations. Hence, this present study aimed to assess the usability of a semi-immersive VR simulation for flight emergency water landing, as well as to educate and raise awareness among fliers, particularly adult flight passengers, on how to handle the evacuation process in the event of a flight emergency water landing. We developed a semi-immersive 3D environment on flight emergency water landing simulation. The apps' usability was tested using System Usability Scale (SUS). The results and conclusions point to a positive outcome where 76.6% of the respondents agreed that this app is usable for emergency water landing simulation situations. However, this study uncovered key findings for future researchers to address; i) researchers should consider the technical aspects when using the semi-immersive VR, and ii) researchers should provide preventive measures to avoid or reduce the after effects of using additional VR devices.