Bayesian network model of aviation safety: Impact of new communication technologies on mid-air collisions

Aleksandar Bauranov and Jasenka Rakas

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2024, vol. 243, issue C

Abstract: This article presents a method of estimating the risk of a mid-air collision. The proposed method is an enhancement of the traditional aviation safety model - Integrated Safety Assessment Model (ISAM) - developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EUROCONTROL. ISAM is a mix of event-based models and fault trees that identifies causes of 35 different types of aviation accidents. While useful for conceptual understanding of accidents, the model does not handle human-technical or inter-system interactions. These drawbacks are especially evident when assessing safety impact of new communication, navigation and surveillance technologies since they rely on pilots and controllers. We propose a method of analyzing the impact of new technologies in aviation by presenting a case study of the Data Communication system – a new technology developed by the FAA used for communication between pilots and controllers. The method builds upon ISAM and leverages a Bayesian Network to estimate safety risk. The results indicate that the implementation of Data Comm can reduce the risk of collision by 25 %. In addition, if a collision has occurred, it is 10 million times more probable that the likely culprit is an error in human communication rather than a failure of communication equipment.

Keywords: Bayesian Belief Network; Aircraft collision analysis; Data Communication; Risk assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:243:y:2024:i:c:s0951832023008190

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2023.109905

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