PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Ash clouds threaten air traffic
View Single Post
Old 21st May 2010, 15:35
  #2956 (permalink)  
lomapaseo
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Florida
Posts: 4,569
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
What better risk analysis can you have than 50 years of records and millions of flights?

The undisputable facts are that NO ONE has been killed in the whole history of aviation by ASH.

You are trying to do a risk analysis on something which to date statistically has shown NOT to be a risk.
Flight safety risk analysis does not work with extremely rare consequences.

What is done is to review much more common outcomes which fortunately for the passenger and crew are measurable degradation in safety (all nicely tided up in the definitions under 25.1309 and the Industry wide CAAM report published by the FAA.

Therfore even sucessful outcomes (the plane landed safely and the passengers changed their underwear) become part of the data. And nobody takes credit for events where nothing happened in millions and millions of hours but instead simply looks at the statistical probability that "any" degradation of safety (according to measured definitions) may happen that contains Volcanic Ash as an ingredient.

I keep saying that the volcanic conditions that we speak of today "will" result in some measurable degradation of safety but no more than the typical risk that we operate within everyday for all other causes (risk is never zero but it is managed within acceptable limits)

Most readers have no idea of what risk is allowed to underly each and every flight and the variable contributions of the causal factors versus time. Just because you identify a newly recognized causal factor "du jour" doesn't mean that you have to manage it to zero to justify to keep flying.
lomapaseo is offline