Airborne Incidents: An Econometric Analysis of Severity

Airborne loss of separation incidents occur when an aircraft breaches the defined separation limit (vertical and/or horizontal) with another aircraft or terrain imposed by Air Traffic Control. Identifying conditions that lead to more severe loss of separation incidents can lead to policy implications and future areas of research. Previous research focused on qualitative approaches to analyzing such events, and tended to examine only the frequency of events. This report puts the severity of a loss of separation incident front and center and uses econometric techniques to examine the relationship between severity and conditional factors during the incident. The report utilizes report data from the Air Traffic Safety Action Program (ATSAP), with a concentration on terminal airspace incidents. A number of other Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data sources were merged to provide a robust set of information at the time of event in terms of facility, weather, and other operational characteristics. The primary focus of this research was on the use of discrete choice, multinomial logit models to better understand the relationship between these different sets of factors at the time of the event and the severity outcome.

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• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12149
• Corporate Authors:

  Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

  Cambridge, MA  United States  02142

  Federal Aviation Administration

  Air Traffic Organization, Office of Safety and Technical Training
  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Authors:
  • Biernbaum, Lee
  • Price, Megan
  • Wishart, Jacob
• Publication Date: 2014-12-19

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 163p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Aircraft separation; Airspace (Aeronautics); Aviation safety; Choice models; Crash causes; Crash characteristics; Multinomial logits; Near midair crashes
• Identifier Terms: Air Traffic Safety Action Program
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01554209
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: DOT-VNTSC-FAA-15-03
• Contract Numbers: FA01B1
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Feb 26 2015 9:49AM