Numerical Risk Analyses of the Impact of Meteorological Conditions on Probability of Airport Runway Excursion Accidents

A continuous growth in air transport industry over the recent decades increases the probability of occurrence of accidents and consequently the need of aviation risk and safety assessments. In order to assess the risks related to aircraft ground operations, all the influencing variables that can affect the safety of maneuvers should be determined. Generally, catastrophic accidents that occur inside an aerodrome are assigned to the runway incursions and excursions. Incursions are dedicated to all events happening inside the runway (e.g. existence of an obstacle or accident of two aircraft) and excursions are considered for an unsuccessful aircraft operation which leads to surpassing the designated thresholds/borders of the runway. Landing and take-off overruns, as the main excursion events, are responsible for the major recorded incidents/accidents over the past 50 years. Many variables can affect the probability of runway-related accidents such as weather conditions, aircraft braking potential, pilot’s level of experience, etc. The scope of this study is to determine weather-wise parameters that amplify the probability of excursion events. In order to quantify the probability of each type of accidents, the effect of each meteorological variables on the aircraft operation is simulated by RSARA/LRSARA© simulators, released by Aircraft Cooperative Research Program (ACRP). In this regard, specific airports with diverse characteristics (i.e.; landlocked airport, extreme annual operations, extreme runway geometries and weather conditions) are selected as case studies in the analyses. Gusts and wind forces, specifically cross-wind, turned out to be the most dominant weather-wise influencing parameters on the occurrence of runway excursions.