Evaluating Risk for Mechanical Aviation Occurrences

Between January 1996 and March 2001 airline crews, following emergency procedures, prematurely ended approximately 33,000 flights due to problems with aircraft systems. Every event ended with safe return of the aircraft and no casualties. Adverse trends in these events, defined as occurrences by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), may represent accident precursors. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center maintains a real-time Intranet application, the Safety Performance Analysis System (SPAS), designed specifically for inspectors to assess risk, prioritize workloads and develop intervention strategies. FAA inspectors requested a SPAS tool highlighting both adverse and encouraging trends in occurrences specific to aircraft system, aircraft type and airline. A proposed technique based on contingency table analysis accomplishes this, employing surveillance data to isolate statistically significant differences among carriers in peer groups.

• Record URL:
  • https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/36070
• Corporate Authors:

  Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

  Cambridge, MA  United States  02142
• Authors:
  • Berk, Lawrence
• Publication Date: 2002-3-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aviation safety; Mechanical failure; Risk analysis
• Identifier Terms: Safety Performance Analysis System (SPAS)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Crash precursors
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01674438
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Jul 3 2018 5:41PM