Data at the Core of CBT and EBT Training

At the 2025 Asia Pacific Aviation Training Summit (APATS) in Singapore, Dr. Tong Li—Professor and Senior Safety Consultant at Northwestern Polytechnical University’s College of Civil Aviation—challenged aviation professionals to rethink the very purpose of recurrent training. Her message was clear: training should move beyond regulatory compliance and instead be risk-based, data-driven, and directly connected to operational reality.

Rethinking Recurrent Training

Dr. Li began with a series of provocative questions: “When we discuss recurrent training, what are we training for? Training for what? Why do we need to do recurrent training? Since you fly every day on the line, why do we do recurrent training?”

 

Interested in more on data-driven training? Join us at EATS this November to continue the conversation on CBT and EBT.

 

These questions underscore a core issue: the gap between training design and the realities of flight operations. Drawing on 15 years of research in aviation safety and mathematics—including expertise in game theory—Dr. Li emphasized the importance of training programs founded on a genuine understanding of risk. “If we say we want to prevent operational risk, then how can we know what kind of risk we have? Do we have a risk map?” she asked.

Her work, including leadership in China’s Professionalism Lifecycle Management (PLM) project, positions her at the forefront of competency-based and evidence-based training approaches.

The Four Principles of Evidence-Based Training

Dr. Li outlined four interconnected pillars of Evidence-Based Training (EBT):

1. Competency-Based Foundation – EBT is an extension of competency-based training, applied to recurrent training.
2. Learning from Successes – Training should highlight not only errors but also the effective strategies crews use in challenging situations.
3. Building Resilience – Crews must be prepared to respond to the unexpected, beyond the scope of standard procedures.
4. Data-Driven Design - Objective analysis, not tradition or assumption, should be driving decisions about training content

This approach represents a shift in mindset—training that builds confidence and capability by reflecting the realities of line operations.

What Makes Scenarios Effective

Dr. Li stressed that scenario design lies at the heart of EBT. Effective scenarios share four qualities:

• Relevance – grounded in real-world operational challenges.
• Immersion – realistic enough that participants respond instinctively, not as if they are in a classroom.
• Process-Oriented Evaluation – focused on how crews manage threats and apply competencies, not simply on pass/fail outcomes.
• Confidence Building – reinforcing competence through practice and positive reinforcement.

Case in Point: Qantas Flight 32

To illustrate these principles, Dr. Li examined the Qantas Flight 32 emergency. When the A380 suffered engine explosions, cabin manager Van Rath recognized that silence was feeding passenger anxiety. Instead of waiting for cockpit instructions, he quickly made a reassuring announcement, demonstrating both leadership and situational awareness.

This decision reflected the essence of competency: skills are not isolated, but interlinked and applied in real time.

Building Scenarios from Data

Dr. Li advocated for a systematic approach to scenario development, drawing on multiple data streams:

• Safety Reports and Analysis – each semester’s training should begin with updated safety data.
• Line Oriented Safety Audits (LOSA) – providing insights into everyday operations and emerging risks.
• Global Industry Data – broadening perspectives through lessons from incidents worldwide.
• Scenario Libraries – collections of scenario elements become valuable organizational assets.
• Airlines with deep scenario libraries gain an edge in creating realistic and relevant training programs.

Speaking a Common Language

Threat and Error Management (TEM), when paired with competency frameworks, creates a shared language for both training and safety departments. This alignment transforms investigation reports from vague observations, such as “poor CRM,” into actionable insights for training design.

From Data to Strategy: IATA’s EBT Model

Dr. Li also referenced IATA’s data-driven EBT model, which classifies training topics by risk exposure:

• A Topics – high-risk, covered every six months.
• B Topics – addressed annually.
• C Topics – revisited every three years.

This framework emerged from massive data analysis, including 10,000 LOSA observations, 3,000 accident and occurrence reports, and thousands of pilot surveys and training records.

Integration with Safety Management Systems

For Dr. Li, EBT is more than a training program; it is a subsystem within an airline’s Safety Management System (SMS). This integration enables the systematic Evaluation of training effectiveness, utilizing feedback loops that compare training performance with real-world operational data.

Moving Beyond Compliance

Traditional classroom-based CRM training often failed to bridge theory and practice. By contrast, CBT and EBT embed both technical and non-technical skills into realistic operational scenarios, ensuring that crews build transferable skills they can rely on in line operations.

Dr. Li emphasized the need for cultural change: “We hope that more and more airlines and our colleagues join the CBT world. You can really help us to connect training and operation, not just wait until ‘poor training’ gets written in safety investigation reports.”

A Logical Evolution

While some still perceive EBT and CBT as overly complex, Dr. Li insists the logic is both compelling and straightforward once implemented. The challenge lies not in the methodology, but in embracing the mindset shift it requires.

Her final message to the industry was one of encouragement: “We really need to influence, and influence ourselves, to create meaningful connections between operational reality and training effectiveness.”

 

Conversations on advancing CBT and EBT will continue at the European Aviation Training Summit (EATS). Presentations include Beyond the Badge: Building the EBT That Delivers with Michael Varney and Paul Field of Salient, and Instructor Concordance: Only for the CBTA and EBT World? with Frank Steiner of conavitra GmbH. These sessions will examine practical strategies for designing effective, data-driven training programs.

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