As much as there are difficulties in determining what the aircraft did/doing, there are also as many external parameters which are just as difficult to establish. For landing, any difference between the reported runway friction and that experienced, similarly the wind speed. Then there are problems of human interaction, ability vs achievement, or the choice of braking level or any change when on the runway; why. Landing distances already have a 60% margin for ‘normal’ variability (depending on application and conditions), but accidents appear to indicate that the combination of variability is more significant; a good target for data mining.
Thus where data may help with retrospective analysis, there are considerable limitations in real time use.
I prefer a more strategic view, aiding organisational factors which can be very powerful, but this should not exclude ‘strategic’ aiding during operations. As an example the landing data could indicate the level of risk in the crew’s choice during a pre landing briefing – expected landing distance, braking action, windspeed; although these data are not known precisely, previous data mining may be able to indicate the risks from their variability, at a particular time/location – a sort of ‘have you considered this’, or ‘add some safety margin’. I can imagine a flight deck display where if ‘3 lemons’ line up the situation requires a diversion, but even then with the variability of human perception, some people’s lemons are oranges.
I am not involved with any these activities, but take interest in ‘technological safety’. E.g. the effectiveness of ‘reactive’ warnings (accuracy permitting) vs proactive, strategic awareness. Reactive systems might encourage complacency and a dependency on the alerts, whereas proactive information might guide thoughts – ‘should we be doing this’ vs ‘how can we do it’; frame the anticipated situation - dynamic awareness.
This opens up alternative views of data use – not just number crunching, but the formation of meaningful data (information) for human use (reactive/proactive), and all within an operating environment (context); man-machine-environment. Thus we should be aware of any narrowing views – ‘not how to solve this problem’, instead ‘what characteristics identify these problems’, and can these be assessed in context and time.
Fresh of the press; with links to previous conferences at the bottom of the page:
EASA - 3rd Conference of the European Operators Flight Data Monitoring forum (EOFDM)