The impact of airport characteristics on airport surface accidents and incidents

• Published in: Journal of safety research 2015-06, Vol.53, p.63-75
• Main Authors: Wilke, Sabine, Majumdar, Arnab, Ochieng, Washington Y.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accidents, Aviation - prevention & control; Accidents, Aviation - statistics & numerical data; Aircraft accidents & safety; Airport characteristics; Airport surface safety; Airports; Airports - statistics & numerical data; Aviation; Causal factors; Humans; Impact analysis; Risk Assessment; Risk Factors; Safety; Safety data
• ISSN: 0022-4375; 1879-1247
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jsr.2015.03.006

Airport surface safety and in particular runway and taxiway safety is acknowledged globally as one of aviation's greatest challenges. To improve this key area of aviation safety, it is necessary to identify and understand the causal and contributing factors on safety occurrences. While the contribution of human factors, operations, and procedures has been researched extensively, the impact of the airport and its associated characteristics itself has received little or no attention. This paper introduces a novel methodology for risk and hazard assessment of airport surface operations, and models the relationships between airport characteristics, and (a) the rate of occurrences, (b) the severity of occurrences, and (c) the causal factors underlying occurrences. The results show for the first time how the characteristics of airports, and in particular its infrastructure and operations, influence the safety of surface operations. •The impact of airports and their characteristics on safety occurrences is analyzed.•The physical characteristics of airports influence the severity of occurrences.•Human errors can be predicted based on the characteristics of an airport.•Safety data are not comparable across countries.