Page 18 - Index

ISASI Kapustin
Scholarship Essay
mance, flight path, systems health, or pilot ticular aircraft’s systems or flight path that
inputs. it is affecting. Whenever there is any issue in
However, with increased amounts of data, the future with parameters in the systems or
it may not always be possible to transmit flight path, the causing action that finds its
all of this data to investigators in real time. source in management of the organization
The most versatile way would be the use will be easily tracked and identified.
of satellites, but the transmission speeds Such a network of connections is not some-
and volumes are limited. The more data thing all air safety investigators have worked
that is being sent, the more the costs. And with before. Technological developments will
operators are not always willing to pay the pose a need for a new type of investigative
price. Flight data recorders (FDRs) gather techniques. [8] Data-driven and risk-based
thousands of points of information every approaches must be taken into consideration
second, and not only would live transmis- to continuously decrease the risk for acci-
sion be costly, but the equipment required dents or incidents. There is no time to wait
to perform this operation would also cost a for safety improvements, and the priority is to
lot. [4] develop preventive actions.
How the industry could make use of Air safety and accident investigators will
real-time big data analysis is to develop a also need to be able to analyze the data that
system transmitting information only when was gathered in the past in terms of acci-
certain parameters would be exceeded, for dents or incidents that happened. They will
example, in an emergency. At that time, the be responsible for data cleaning, analysis,
aircraft would be able to send all the data and interpretation. They will also need to be
from a certain time, and it would be ready able to investigate why the proper use of data
for further analysis. At all other times, only hasn’t been performed in the past, leading to
certain limited data would be transmitted an incident or accident. In addition, there is a
at longer intervals. This would also prevent need to allow air safety investigators to access
not having access to the FDRs if they were the network of all the databases created by
lost in an accident and not yet found. operators. This may raise concerns of privacy
This implementation of SRBD would and security; however, information combined
require air safety investigators to categorize from different systems might be extremely
very specifically at what points the receiver valuable in early error detection.
would send all of the information. A thor-
ough review of the accident database would Conclusion
have to be performed to develop a struc- Gathering and analyzing large amounts of
tured way to categorize those parameters. data is crucial to make the aviation industry
While it is relatively easy to gather big safer. While not a simple task, development of
data from airplane systems and com- new methods that air safety investigators can
ponents, it is crucial to remember that utilize has to be emphasized in order to make
approximately 80% of accidents are caused the most use out of the available technologies.
by human error. [5] Human factors are what They are able to provide almost any informa-
the aviation industry is focused on, and data tion needed in extreme detail. Currently,
analysis in this area cannot be performed systems such as SMS, Aviation Safety Informa-
that easily. However, as safety science tion Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS), and FOQA
suggests, almost all human factors can be make use of extensive data analysis. As more
traced to the managerial side of the organ- data is available and as the aviation enters the
ization. [6] It is also being suggested that era of big data, more complex systems will be
aviation big data analysis should make use developed, and currency and training of
of the multilayer network correlation. [7] current safety investigators are of the utmost
Therefore, big data analysis can be importance. A challenge is placed on the
performed on many layers, including the safety segment of the industry to create,
aircraft and its performance or the manage- structure, and implement systems associated
ment of the organization. Then correlations with SRBD and its complex network. This
can be found between different layers, and requires cooperation with other industries
conclusions can be drawn. For example, such as IT or mathematics. Air safety investi-
any changes to the operator’s policy, any gators play a vital role in this development
maintenance action, or any other trackable and are responsible for guiding the industry in
information could be assigned to the par- the right direction.

18 • January-March 2022 ISASI Forum