Modeling airline crew activity to improve flight safety analysis

Abstract

This paper reviews processes used by airlines to analyze inflight recorded parameters in their safety management system. Then it investigates how the expected crew activity can be modeled, based on airlines' standard operating procedures, and used to get a better understanding of operational risks. The language allowing the hierarchical description of the crew activity is described as well as the process dedicated to the identification of these elements from the recorded flight parameters. As an application case study, a go-around procedure is modeled and used to analyze a set of real aviation data. Results emphasize how this new flight data analysis process can complement existing tools.