Crew

For other uses, see Crew (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Crewe. "Crews" redirects here. For other uses, see Crews (disambiguation).

A crew is a body or a group of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard.^[1] The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involved in operating a ship, particularly a sailing ship, providing numerous specialities within a ship's crew, often organised with a chain of command. Traditional nautical usage strongly distinguishes officers from crew, though the two groups combined form the ship's company. Members of a crew are often referred to by the titles crewmate, crewman or crew-member.

Crew of a spacecraft (Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-112, 2002)

Types

The concept of a crew extends beyond maritime contexts to include teams in aviation, film production, emergency services, and space exploration. In aviation, for instance, flight crews consist of pilots, flight engineers, and cabin attendants working in coordinated roles to ensure passenger safety.^[2] Film crews are hierarchically organized into departments like camera, lighting, and sound, each with specialized roles contributing to production.^[3]Similarly, firefighting crews operate with clear command structures during emergencies.^[4] Even in space missions, NASA designates astronauts as either command crew or mission specialists, demonstrating how crew structures adapt to different professional environments while maintaining core principles of organized teamwork and division of labor.^[5]

• For a specific sporting usage, see rowing crew.
• For filmmaking usage, see film crew.
• For live music usage, see road crew.
• For analogous entities in research on human judgment and decision-making, see team and judge–advisor system.
• For stagecraft usage, see stage crew.
• For video production usage, see television crew.
• For crews in aviation and the airline industry, see groundcrew and aircrew.
• For crews in human spaceflight, see astronaut.
• Tank crew
• Boat crew