Abstract
Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) is a significant cause of General Aviation (GA) fixed-wing aircraft accidents. The United States National Transportation Safety Board’s database provides a rich source of accident data, but conventional analyses of the database yield limited insights to LOC-I. We investigate the causes of 5,726 LOC-I fixed‑wing GA aircraft accidents in the United States in 1999–2008 and 2009–2017 using a state-based modeling approach. The multi-year analysis helps discern changes in causation trends over the last two decades. Our analysis highlights LOC-I causes such as pilot actions and mechanical issues that were not discernible in previous research efforts. The logic rules in the state-based approach help infer missing information from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports. We inferred that 4.84% (1999–2008) and 7.46% (2009–2017) of LOC-I accidents involved a preflight hazardous aircraft condition. We also inferred that 20.11% (1999–2008) and 19.59% (2009–2017) of LOC-I accidents happened because the aircraft hit an object or terrain. By removing redundant coding and identifying when codes are missing, the state-based approach potentially provides a more consistent way of coding accidents compared to the current coding system.
Highlights
Fixed-wing General Aviation (GA) accidents comprise approximately 64% of all aviation accidents in the United States (U.S.) every year (NTSB, 2019a)
Most fixed‐wing GA accidents result from inflight loss of control (LOCI), controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), continued visual flight rules flight into instrumental meteorological conditions (‘continued VFR into IMC’), engine failures, and fuel exhaustion/contamination
We investigate whether additional insight into fixedwing LOC-I can be garnered from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) database by taking a different modelling approach
Summary
Fixed-wing General Aviation (GA) accidents comprise approximately 64% of all aviation accidents in the United States (U.S.) every year (NTSB, 2019a). Inflight loss of control (LOC-I) continues to be a significant cause of GA fixed-wing aircraft accidents each year. The potentially wide range of accident stories is reduced to a small set of short stories, most of which are some variation of “the pilot lost control and crashed into the ground/water” These problems are compounded by the lack of information about the cause for LOC-I. The most frequently used cause for fixed-wing LOC-I accidents is aircraft control not maintained - in other words, the pilot lost control because they did not maintain control (Houston et al, 2012; Franza & Fanjoy, 2012). Ancel et al (2015) developed an object-oriented Bayesian network (OOBN), based on HFACS, to model Part 121 and 135 LOC-I accidents. Using the state-based approach, we found additional causes and different cause rankings for LOC-I accidents than those resulting from conventional analyses, such as those described earlier
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
