Quantification of incident probabilities using physical and statistical approaches

Abstract — This paper provides an overview of methods capable of quantifying the occurrence probabilities of serious incidents for the flight operation of a single airline. Operational flight data is used for the analysis. Extreme value theory can be applied to directly estimate the occurrence probabilities from recorded flight data by making statements beyond existing data points. Both a physical and a statistical approach are used to determine dependencies between contributing factors that can lead to an incident as well as to determine the occurrence probabilities of given incident types. The physical model, represented by the equations of motion of the aircraft, is applied to describe relationships of aircraft parameters that are well known. The hidden relationships and unknown contributing factors, in contrary, can be found and described using the mathematical concept of copulas. The runway overrun serves as an example to demonstrate our methods.     «

Abstract — This paper provides an overview of methods capable of quantifying the occurrence probabilities of serious incidents for the flight operation of a single airline. Operational flight data is used for the analysis. Extreme value theory can be applied to directly estimate the occurrence probabilities from recorded flight data by making statements beyond existing data points. Both a physical and a statistical approach are used to determine dependencies between contributing factors that can...     »