Aircraft Landing Performance Assessment through Post‐Flight Data Analytics

Abstract

AbstractA third of all accidents involving commercial aircraft worldwide have been determined to be due to landing performance deviations resulting in runway excursions. Landing distance, i.e. the distance needed to safely complete the landing at the destination runway, is one of the key parameters that define the landing performance of an aircraft. From an operational safety perspective, assessment of landing performance of every flight in terms of landing distance and the related aircraft system parameters, to identify the performance deviations of the Pilot and Aircraft and Aircraft systems, as well as potential system faults / failures that could have triggered these deviations, would help the Airlines to effectively plan Aircraft and Aircraft system maintenance and Pilot training. This paper proposes a systems engineering approach to assess the landing performance of a given flight. The requirements and architecture definition process for the landing performance assessment system is discussed. A method to analyze the landing performance deviations and to perform a root cause analysis to identify and isolate the key contributors towards these deviations is presented.