Mid Term Embry Riddle May 31 2017
1)
Discuss and detail the issues to be aware of in analyzing and com-
paring commercial aviation accident statistics.
As with all statistical data, it is important to understand that not all data can sim-
ply be recorded and then compared to any other type of other data, for a conclu-
sion to be drawn. It is therefore imperative to carefully select what type of data is
to be gather and to what it should be compared. Furthermore statistical data
need to be recorded over a certain period of time, where federal regulations ap-
pear to accept as norm a “5-10-year span” (Rodrigues & Cusick, 2012). Addition-
ally, one of the most important denominators in order to correctly assess accident
statistics for safety analysis, is known as exposure data. Exposure data are the
“information that indicates the amount of opportunity for an even to occur” (Ro-
drigues & Cusick, 2012). Exposure data are used as denominator rates such as
in “aircraft accident and fatalities per million of departures” (The Guardian,
2015).
There are however clear restrictions when analyzing and comparing aviation ac-
cident statistics. For once as previously stated, accidents cannot simply be com-
pared across boards of other accidents. General aviation accidents cannot be
compared with major airliner accidents. This is because major airliners operate a
much higher frequency of aircraft, at much higher rates of departures and land-
ings which are the most critical conditions of flight, therefore comparing the two
types of operations would provide inaccurate results. This is also because both
operations set different requirements. FAA Part 121 airline operations, have
stricter requirements than FAA Part 135 or Part 61, because of the environment
under which such flights are conducted, for example it is known to all that FAA
Part 121 airline regulations fly mostly bigger
