Abstract
Birdstrikes are an important threat to aviation safety. A standardized, scientific process for assessing birdstrike risk could prevent accidents, thereby improving the flight safety and reducing economic losses. However, China currently lacks a unified birdstrike risk assessment system. Here, we propose and validate a new model for assessing birdstrike risk in order to fill that need. The model consists of two elements. First, empirical data are collected on the occurrence of birds at the airport and in a surrounding 8 km buffer. Second, each species is evaluated with a risk assessment matrix that takes into account the number of birds, weight, flight altitude, a tendency to cluster, and range of activity. These five factors allow each species to be divided into one of three risk levels: high danger (level 3), moderate danger (level 2) and low danger (level 1). We propose corresponding birdstrike prevention measures for each level. We apply this method to the civil aviation airport in Ordos, China. We found that 20 of the 118 species of birds in and around the airport were high danger birds (level 3). To validate this process, we compared these species with records of birdstrike accidents in a database maintained by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) for 2007–2016. We found that 42% of the species we identified as high risk had been involved in at least one birdstrike accident, and that the remaining 58% belonged to families that appeared in the database. The high degree of overlap gives us high confidence in the practicality of our risk assessment model, which is based on the risk management concept of ISO 31000. Critically, this new model and method for predicting bird strike risk can be replicated at other airports around the world, even where no extensive records have been kept of past birdstrikes.
Highlights
A birdstrike is an incident in which an aircraft collides with a flying bird at an airport or an adjacent a rea[1]
In this study we attempt to address the lack of a universally applicable birdstrike risk assessment process that can be used in countries and settings were past birdstrike data is incomplete or absent
We attempt to validate our model by assessing whether the birds in our highest risk category have been associated with past birdstrike events in China
Summary
A birdstrike is an incident in which an aircraft collides with a flying bird at an airport or an adjacent a rea[1]. Chinese scholars have typically calculated the risk of different types of birdstrikes according to one or a subset of seven factors: comparative space, comparative time, comparative quantity, comparative weight, distance coefficient, cluster coefficient and flight height. Many of these criteria are subjective or cannot be made in a consistent way across different airports[9,10,11,12,13]. We attempt to validate our model by assessing whether the birds in our highest risk category have been associated with past birdstrike events in China. This model attempts to standardize a birdstrike risk prevention system, by being applicable to birdstrike prevention work in airports all around the world
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