Safety management
NLR-ATSI has concluded a study concerning aviation safety management
in Switzerland. In recent years the Swiss aviation sector
has been struck by a series of severe aviation accidents.
This has led to the perception that within the Swiss air transportation system
there might be structural causes, leading to an inadequate level of safety.
Safety regulation
Two example studies are mentioned in this section. One project concerns the regulations regarding obstacle free zones around airports.
This is an area that will receive more and more attention in the future, as large aircraft will be introduced and as the pressure of
infrastructure development around airports keeps increasing.
The second project looks at a completely different level of regulation: the introduction of a new regulatory body, namely the
European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Safety cases and safety assessments
The Norwegian Air Navigation Service Provider “Avinor” is performing an extensive program to modernize its services and to make them more
cost-efficient. Part of this program is to down man personnel in the control towers at about 20 regional airports in Norway, by redistributing the assistants’
tasks among Tower and Approach controller and by increased automation.
Operational and flight technical assessments
Geneva International Airport operates two closely spaced
parallel runways: one long, concrete, runway and a shorter
grass strip. The concrete runway is used predominantly
by heavy aircraft flying under Instrument Flight Rules
(IFR), and the grass strip is restricted to small single-engine
aircraft operating under Visual Flight Rules (VFR).
In the Netherlands the presence of strong
wind is a frequent phenomenon. As a consequence aircraft
operations in the Netherlands are often subject to strong
wind conditions and associated turbulence.
Air safety data analysis
Examples projects in the area of air safety data and flight
data analysis are listed below. In those projects the
NLR-ATSI Air Safety Database was used. The NLR-ATSI Air Safety
Database helps adopting a data-driven approach that can
be used in developing strategies to enhance safety.
Example projects of air safety data analysis:
- Statistical summaries
- Evacuation slides
- Air-to-ground communication problems
- Landing overruns
- Runway incursions
Example projects of flight data analysis:
- Take-off rotation behaviour
- Landing analyses
- RNLAF Flight Data Monitoring Support
Incident and accident investigation
The safety institue is able to provide accident investigation boards
with engineering support in accident and incident investigations
ranging from on-scene wreckage investigations to flight
path reconstruction and accident sequence analysis.
Security
The NLR-Air Transport Safety Institute is involved in
a variety of European Security R&D projects, including
SAFEE, COUNTERACT, PATIN, and SINBAD.
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