SAFETY ASSESSMENT AT AIRPORTS: SO PAULO/CONGONHAS AIRPORT A CASE STUDY

Joo Luiz de Castro Fortes E-mail: jlfortes@gmail.com Anderson Ribeiro Correia E-mail: correia@ita.br Aeronautics Institute of Technology Pca. Mal. do Ar Eduardo Gomes, 50 So Jos dos Campos SP Brazil Phone/Fax: +55 12 3947 6837

ABSTRACT The objective of this work is to structure a risk assessment process for Brazilian airports, which contain nonconformities at runway end safety areas (RESA) and runway strips. The following steps were achieved in this research: (1) survey of existing non-conformities; (2) identification of potential hazardous scenarios; (3) quantification of risk; and (4) mitigating actions to reduce risk. For this study, So Paulo/Congonhas airport was used as a case study due to its great importance in two aspects: major Brazilian airport for domestic passenger traffic and the presence of large number of nonconformities in its infrastructure, which may compromise safety. The study shows that the airport operates most of the time with high risk levels of an incident/accident occurrence.

Keywords: Risk Paulo/Congonhas Airport

Assessment,

Safety,

Nonconformities,

Infrastructure,

So

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INTRODUCTION

In a general sense, the idea of safety applied to transport modes is seen as the possibility of absolute control of any interference that may result in undesirable outcomes, such as an accident. However, this kind of approach is almost impossible to achieve due to the huge number of systems, which embody the mode and the random nature of each system. The systems, which include not only the devices but also the human factor, have their intrinsic error occurrence probabilities. Although it is possible to lower the likelihood of problems for these components to an acceptable level, it would be impossible (and extremely expensive) to reach the null probability of an error. Reduction of risk and consequent death injury and damage is the key objective of policies for transport safety. Systematic risk assessment, setting targets for its reduction in the context of safety strategies, and progress monitoring are playing an increasing role in the formulation and implementation of transport safety policy across the various modes road, rail, air and maritime (ETSC, 2001). The beginning of aviation was marked by the concern that technical factors were mainly responsible for errors occurred in aviation. This period, known as the technical area, embraces the time from the Second World War up to 1970s. After that, the world saw great developments in technology, especially directed to aviation such as radar, autopilots and jet engines. Then, the concerns shifted from technical to human factor (ICAO, 2009). However, in this period, the human factor perception was only focused on the individual and not on the organizational structure, which surrounds the individual. It was not until late 1990s that safety began to be viewed in a systemic point view. Nowadays, safety can be better defined by the state in which the possibility of harm to persons or of property damage is reduced to, and maintained at or below, an acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification (ICAO, 2009).

Many countries have achieved a remarkably high level of safety. Maintaining this success will prove challenging as air traffic increases (Ludwig et. al, 2007). From the perspective of prevention, if risks can be efficiently diagnosed before serious failure occurs, the incident may be markedly reduced (Lee, 2006). One way to reach acceptable levels of safety are through establishment of standards. These standards are made in order to assure that all activities, procedures, operations, facilities and personal will yield low-level risk systems for the transportation mode. For airports, standards and recommended practices (SARPs) for Aerodromes were first adopted by the Council on 29 May 1951 pursuant to the provisions of Article 37 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago 1944) and designated as Annex 14 to the Convention (ICAO, 2004). These SARPs were based on recommendations of the Aerodromes, Air Routes and Ground Aids Division at its third session in September 1947 and at its fourth session in November 1949 (ICAO, 2004). Brazil, as signatory member, adopted these standards for airport infrastructure to national legislation through Brazilian Civil Aviation Regulation 154 (ANAC, 2009).
1.1 Motivation

Although airports should follow ICAO SARPs anywhere in the world, several of them fail to comply with it. Some airports were built before the publication of ICAO standards. These facts happen because by the time of their construction, some of them did not allocate enough space for safety areas, like runway end safety area (RESA). Additionally, for instance, some airports did not respect the free-obstacle area by the runway (runway strip). These and other facts are nonconformities, representing situations that deviate from the current regulation. Furthermore, each different type of nonconformity will yield a risk, which may be greater or lower, depending on the level of completion to the standard. Information of eight major Brazilian airports was gathered (Medeiros and Correia, 2010), and the

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research

presents

74

construction

nonconformities, as presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Occurrences verified in a sample of eight airports (Medeiros and Correia, 2010).

It is possible to extract from Table 2 that the major nonconformities in the sample are related to runway systems. The third column in Table 2 (TOTAL) represents the total of each kind of nonconformity in the total sample. In most of these examples, the deviations cannot be easily eliminated or corrected. Most of them claim for a substantial amount of money in order to comply with SARPs. Both ICAO and ANAC allow deviation from standards, as long as the imposed risk to operations is within an acceptable level. The Brazilian legislation which deals with the subject is IAC 1541000, which gives the general aspects an Aeronautical Study (study which contemplates risk evaluation and mitigating actions) should consider. This regulation is not precise or detailed in order to propose a given methodology or acceptable safety standards. However, this regulation states that when the identified nonconformity relates to physical aspects and its solution is unfeasible, the development of Aeronautical Study in order to define if the associated risk is acceptable. If the risk is tolerable, the Aeronautical Authority (AA) may be

absented to solve the nonconformity (DAC, 2004).

2 OBJECTIVES

This work intends to develop an assessment procedure to deal with the airports that present nonconformities on runways systems. The research employs statistical tools in order to evaluate risk for potential scenarios in the case study of So Paulo/Congonhas domestic airport.
3 3.1 LITERARTURE REVIEW fundamentals on risk assessment

Some terms and ideas have to be defined in order make this work. Although the idea of risk is familiar to engineers, it usually cannot be precisely defined. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defines it in its Risk Management Handbook as the future impact of a hazard that is not controlled or eliminated. It can be seen as future uncertainty created by the hazard. The risk can be described as the probability and severity of loss from exposure to the hazard

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and, the assessment step as the application of quantitative or qualitative measures to determine the level of risk associated with a specific hazard (Canale et al, 2005). On the other hand, hazard can be defined as a present condition, event, object, or circumstance that could lead to or contribute to an unplanned or undesired event such as an accident (FAA, 2009). Since risk is probabilistically impossible to be eliminated (a null event would happen if the action would not have been done), the main idea is to quantify it and to assess its outcomes, in order to manage it. Risk assessment has been object of study in several fields of our society. Risk analysis can be defined (McColl et al., 2000) as a body of knowledge (methodology) that evaluates and derives a probability of an adverse effect of an agent (chemical, physical, or other), industrial process, technology, or natural process, where, definition of an "adverse effect" is a value judgment. The risk assessment is the process which associates hazards with risks (Canale et al, 2005). Due to the uncertainty of events which may lead to a hazardous situation, probability tools are usually necessary. The probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) was

developed to facilitate the quantification of risks associated with complex engineered systems (Molak and Bier, 1997). It is particularly appropriate for analyzing the frequencies of extremely rare events. Some essential characteristics needed in a conduction of PRAs (Molak and Bier, 1997) are described by Molak and Bier (1997). Among them, we can mention the necessity of PRAs to identify the levels of severity which the system may present for different inputs; the necessity of PRAs to provide both qualitative and quantitative assessment of the studied system and its uncertainty as well. The probability obtained in this part can be compared to Table 3. This table classifies an event according to its frequency. Once the probabilities of undesirable events are calculated, it is necessary to measure the consequences, that is, their severity. This step can have different approaches, e.g. the number of injuries it may cause; the total cost it can generate, the number of people can be affected by it, etc. For aeronautical accidents, both aircraft damages and personal injuries are considered important. Table 4 classifies the consequences of undesirable events.

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Table 3: Frequency table (Hall et al., 2008)

Table 4: Severity classification (Hall et al., 2008)

Finally, both probability and severity are combined in order to yield the level of risk as shown in figure 1, defined as risk matrix. It is the combination of frequency and severity of an event. The red squares represent intolerable situations. The events, which are under these conditions, are unacceptable. After calculating the risks, the next step is to develop actions for to managing or even eliminating these risks. Risk management can be seen as a systematic

application of management and engineering principles, criteria and tools to optimize all aspects of safety within the constraints of operational effectiveness, time, and cost throughout all mission phases (Canale et al, 2005).
3.2 Models for quantitative risk

assessment

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Studies related to calculating risk in the aviation field can be divided in two areas: (1) the ones related to operational risk, such as collision risk during an aircrafts approach; (2) the ones related deviations of design standards in airport infrastructure (Hall et al, 2008). This research focuses on the second area. Some recommendations have already been provided concerning airport infrastructures nonconformities in order to reach a target level of safety (Eddowes and Hancox, 2001). A frequency based model was developed (Kirkland et al, 2004) on operational data in order to calculate risk; however, according to the authors, it is not conclusive due to lack of data on normal operations. It explains that

it would be necessary in order to compare the number of operations which were under the same conditions (as in an accident), but did not lead to an undesirable outcome. This field advanced with the development of a more flexible and sensitive model which allows to calculate the risk in runway system for different locations (Wong et al, 2009). This knowledge, which has been improving along the years, was gathered in order to create a model which associates the risk of accident for different conditions and locations with the accident location models yielding a more complete system risk view (Hall et al, 2008). This method will be used for this research.

Table 5: Risk Matrix (adapted from ICAO, 2009)

Risk Probability Frequent Probable Remote Extremely Remote Extremely Improbable 4 METHODOLOGY

Risk Severity Catastrophic Hazardous Major Minor 1 2 3 4 1A 1B 3A 4A A 1B 2B 3B 4B B 1C 2C 3C 4C C 1D 2D 3D 4D D 1E 2E 3E 4E E

Negligible 5 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E

Assessing risk for RESA and runway strips can be seen in a systematic way. Initially, nonconformities found on those areas, along with their characteristics, have to be defined. This is an important step because it will allow the analyst to create potential hazardous scenarios in order to evaluate their risk and propose mitigating actions. For the next step, the likelihood of occurrence of an incident/accident (landing overrun, landing undershoot or taking off overrun), along with the probability that an aircraft goes over the airports safety areas (runways strip and RESA) will be calculated using the equations developed by Hall et al (2008). It was showed (Santos, 2009) that, although this model was not specifically developed for Brazilian airports, it is adequate to be used for assessing risk at Brazilian airports.

Equations 1 to 6 are employed to calculate the likelihood of occurrence of an incident/accident. The parameters varies as a function of the type of incident/accident investigated (landing overrun, landing undershoot or taking off overrun) and atmospheric conditions during operations are presented, respectively, in Table 6 and

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Table 7. This approach turns the analysis more flexible and comprehensive because it allows performing investigation for a variety of meteorological conditions. (1) In addition to the equation 1, the following equations are used to calculate the chances that an aircraft will exceed the safety areas after an eventual accident. X represents the distance from the studied threshold, in feet, along the runways axis and Y represents the distance from the

studied threshold, in feet, perpendicular to runways axis. Landing Overrun (LDOR):

Take-off Overrun (TOOR):

Landing Undershoot (LDUS):

Table 6: Variation of Parameter b Accident Variable b

Landing Overrun

b = 15.456 + 0.551(Heavy Acft) 2.113(Commuter Acft) 1.064(Medium Acft) 0.876(Small Acft) + 0.445(TurboProp Acft) 0.857(International Origin/Destination) + 1.832(Ceiling Height < 1000 ps) + 1.639(Ceiling Height 1001 2500 ps) + 2.428(Visibility < 2SM) + 1.186(Visibility 2 4SM) + 1.741(Visibility 4 - 6SM) + 0.322(Visibility 6 - 8SM) 0.532(Crosswind 2 5 knots) + 1.566(Crosswind 5 12 knots) + 1.518(Crosswind > 12 knots) + 0.986(Electric Storm) + 1.926(Icing Conditions) + 1.499(Snow) 1.009(Temperature< 5C) 0.631(Temperature 5 15C) + 0.265(Temperature > 25C) + 1.006(Nonhub Airport) + 0.924(Significant Terrain)

Taking off Overrun

b = 16.6515 + 0.721(Heavy Acft) 0.619(Commuter Acft) 0.009(Medium Acft) + 1.669(Small Acft) + 1.336(User Class1) + 1.052 (User Class 2) + 1.225(Ceiling Height < 1000 ps) + 1.497(Ceiling Height 1001 2500 ps) + 0.201(Visibility < 2SM) 1.941(Visibility 2 - 4SM) 0.366(Visibility 4 - 6SM) + 0.317(Visibility 6 - 8SM) + 1.660(Fog) 0.292(Crosswind 2 5 knots) + 1.598(Crosswind 5 12 knots) + 1.781(Crosswind > 12 knots) 0.536(Temperature < 5C) 0.507(Temperature 5 15C) + 0.502(Temperature > 25C) + 1.805(Icing Conditions) + 2.567(Snow)

Landing Undershoot

b = 14.9642 + 0.036(Heavy Acft) 1.699(Commuter Acft) 0.427(Medium Acft) + 1.760(Small Acft) + 0.288(User Class1) + 0.908 (User Class 2) 1.042(International Origin/Destination) + 0.199(Ceiling Height < 1000 ps) + 1.463(Ceiling Height 1001 2500 ps) + 2.074(Visibility < 2SM) + 0.069(Visibility 2 - 4SM) 0.185(Visibility 4 - 6SM) 0.295(Visibility 6 - 8SM) + 1.830(Fog) 1.705(Rain) 0.505(Temperature < 5C) 0.874(Temperature 5 15C) 0.446(Temperature > 25C) + 2.815(Icing Conditions) + 2.412(Snow)

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Table 7: Models equation and its parameters description

Equipment Class Ref: C HeavyAcft AB CommuterAcft D MediumAcft E SmallAcft F User Class User Class 1 User Class 2 Foreign OD Ceiling Height Ceiling Height < 1000ft Ceiling Height 1001-2500ft Visibility Visibility <2SM Visibility 2-4SM Visibility 4-6SM Visibility 6-8SM Crosswind Xwind2-5knots Xwind5-12knots Xwind>12knots ElectStorm IcingConditions Snow Air Temperature Temp<5C Temp5-15C Temp>25C NunhubApt SignificantTerrain Independent variables used for frequency models Large jet of <TOW 41k-255k lb (B737, A320, etc) Heavy jets of MTOW 255k lb+ Large commuter of MTOW 41k-255k lb (small RJs, ATR42, etc) Medium aircraft of MTOW 12.5k-41k lb (biz jets, Embraer 120, Learjet 35, etc) Small aircraft of MTOW 12.5k or less (small, single or twin engine Beech90, Cessna Caravan, etc) Ref: C = Commercial F = Cargo // Freighter G = GA Foreign origin/destination (yes/no) - Ref: domestic Ref: >2500ft <1000 1001-2500 Ref: 8-10 statute miles (SM) < 2SM 2-4SM 4-6SM 6-8SM Ref:<2knots 2-5knots 5-12knots >12 Electrical Storm(yes/no) - Ref: no Icing conditions (yes/no) - Ref: no Snow (yes/no) - Ref: no Ref: 15-25 deg.C <deg.C 5-15 deg.C >25deg.C Non-hub airport (yes/no) - Ref: hub airport Significant terrain (yes/no) - Ref:no

Notes: Ref: indicates the reference category against which the odds ratios should be interpreted Non-hub airport: airport having less than 0.05% of anual passenger boardings Significant terrain: terrain within the plan view of airport exceeds 4000 feet above the airport elevation, or if the terrain within a 6.0 nautical miles radius of the Airport Reference Point rises to at least 2000 feet above the airport elevation

Finally, in order to calculate veer-off probabilities, this research employs probabilities estimated for 15 major Brazilian airports (which concentrates more than 80 % of the air traffic) (Medeiros, 2009). It was estimated that the likelihood of an aircraft veering-off during take-off and landing is respectively 1.2x10-7 and 9.8x10-7. The value for b will the sum of the values presented in Table 6 (for values considered reference in Table 7, its value will be 0), according to its operational conditions.
4.1 Application Example

presents, during the operation, the following conditions: Ceiling Height: 2000 ft Visibility: 5 Statute Miles (SM) Crosswind: 1 knot Temperature: 14 oC No snow and icing conditions No electrical storm Non-hub airport Non-significant terrain around the airport Domestic OD airport The value b for landing incident/accident will be: overrun

Consider the following example of a hypothetical airport. A commercial flight (User Class C) operating an ATR-72 (Commuter Aircraft), lands in an airport which has an obstacle 260 ft away from its thresholds end (as seen in Figure 2) and

b = -15.456 2.113 + 1.639 + 1.741 -0.631 + 1.006 = -13.814 Consequently, P{LDOR}, using equation 1, is 1.001x10-6. In order to calculate the aircrafts probability of exceeding a location

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260 ft (79 m) away from runways threshold (where the obstacle is located), Equations 2 and 3 are used. The values of x and y are substituted by the obstacles x and y location. Then P{d>x} and P{d>y} are respectively 63,13% and 97,09%. The final probability, which is, the probability that a lading overrun event will happen and will exceed the obstacle x and y location, will be calculated multiplying the three previously calculated probabilities.

P{final} = P{LDOR} x P{d>x} x P{d>y} = 6.19x10-7 The final step is to classify the severity caused by this accident (Table 4) and identify the risk, using Table 5, for this accident.

Figure 2: Landing Overrun Accident/Incident

CASE STUDY

The airport studied in this work is So Paulo/Congonhas Domestic Airport. This airport is the second largest airport in number of annual passengers. Congonhas (as it is usually referred to) was built during the 1930s, mainly to operate small aircrafts. However, the airside has not significantly changed since its construction, which explains the presence of various nonconformities according to recent regulations. Another important fact is that the surroundings of the airport are already occupied, as seen in Figure 3. This means that any incident/accident which may leave the airports site (e.g.: a landing overrun) may have disastrous consequences for the people living nearby the area. This airport mainly operates category C aircrafts (Bastos et al., 2008). Runway strips free obstacle area (300 m of width and 60 m of length from

each threshold, as designated by RBAC 154) is invaded by the airports apron and taxiway almost in all its longitudinal extension. Also, the full extension of RESA (90 m as designated by RBAC 154) is not allocated for both thresholds which may yield disastrous consequences in case an aircraft has a problem during its operation. According to its operator, landings and take-offs are done mainly through 17 R and 35 L, respectively. The first scenario in this research considers landing and take-off overruns in 35 L. After the threshold, only a 60m-lenght pavement is available for possible overruns (the airports site limits are practically there as seen in Figure 3). Then, this scenario, schematically depicted in Figure 4, would result in a catastrophic scenario with certain hull loss and deaths along with possible damage in the airport neighborhood area. The second scenario would be landing undershoot in threshold 17 R.

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Similarly to threshold 35 L, a small portion of pavement is available after the threshold, as seen in Figure 3. The consequence for this scenario would be equally catastrophic in case the aircraft do not land in the inside the runway (Figure 5). The last scenario would be the aircraft veering-off during a landing undershoot. Figure 6 shows that holding

position are only 75 m away from runways axis. Therefore, any aircraft holding to start its operation can be considered an obstacle. This scenario is also considered having catastrophic consequences since the aircraft holding at that position will be with full fuel tank and any collision would probably result in an explosion.

Figure 3: Congonhas Airports overview (Google Earth)

Figure 4: Scheme for hazardous scenario 1 LDOR and TOOR on 35 L

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Figure 5: Scheme for hazardous scenario 2 LDUS for 17 R

Figure 6: Scheme for hazardous scenario 3 veering-off during landing or take-off

The input data for atmospheric conditions and operations were collected for this case study. The number of flights in the busiest day of week was used to calculate the likelihood of the undesirable event. Meteorological data was obtained from REDEMET (Brazilian Air Forces Meteorological Center), which presents average meteorological conditions of a 10year series; the data is detailed for all months and each operational hour of the airport (So Paulo/Congonhas operational time ranges from 6:00 to 23:00). However, the data available is very limited (it has only information about wind direction, visibility, precipitation, temperature). Data related to other parameters such as fog, occurrence of lighting storm and ceiling height for the

airport site were not available. Therefore, the analysis considered that values for these parameters are within the reference intervals (as present in

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Table 7). Table 8: Total probabilities and Risk for scenarios 1 and 2Table 8 summarizes total (as presented in the previous example) probabilities for scenarios 1 and 2. Since undershoot and overrun probabilities vary with atmospheric values, the occurrence probability of the events will be different for each period of the day, along the year, according to the atmospheric conditions for the studied period. For most of the months, the calculated probabilities are classified as remote and extremely remote. However, the severity at these scenarios is classified as catastrophic (possibility of total hull loss and multiple fatalities). Table 8 summarizes the total probabilities (as described in the previous

section) and the associated risk to the event. It is verified that the risk presented is, for some months, within the red region (unacceptable risk). Most of the time, operations are happening under the yellow region. This means that, in order to keep operations happening, mitigations actions to lower risk must be taken. For scenario 3, the landing and takeoff veer-off probability are estimated by Medeiros (2009) as 1,2x10-7 and 9.8x10-7, respectively. This means that this kind of accident can be classified as Extremely Remote, according to Table 3. Since this scenario is also catastrophic, the risk would be 1D which means that the risk for this scenario is acceptable since mitigations actions are taken.

Table 8: Total probabilities and Risk for scenarios 1 and 2

RISK
Month

Scenario 1 Threshold 35 L
P{LDOR} 3.21E-07 3.43E-07 3.43E-07 5.41E-07 2.75E-07 4.78E-07 4.01E-07 1.46E-06 1.58E-06 1.64E-06 1.69E-06 1.53E-06 RISK 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1C 1C 1C 1C 1C P{TOOR} 2.88E-08 3.21E-08 3.17E-08 1.79E-07 5.55E-08 3.84E-07 2.75E-07 2.59E-07 4.05E-07 4.86E-07 2.99E-07 1.38E-06 RISK 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1C

Scenario 2 Threshold 17 R
P{LDUS} 1.65E-07 1.52E-07 1.54E-07 1.60E-07 2.83E-07 4.39E-07 2.72E-07 1.32E-06 2.90E-06 3.46E-06 2.20E-06 1.09E-06 RISK 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1D 1C 1C 1C 1C 1C

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

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MITIGATING ACTIONS

Alternative actions have to be divided in two components: actions in order to lower probability of undesirable outcomes (landing undershoot and overrun, take-off overrun and veer-off) and actions which diminish severity in case of an accident. Since the probability model is basically related to atmospheric conditions, as shown in Table 6, any alternative action in order to achieve lower probabilities would be difficult to implement. One alternative is restricting operations for larger aircrafts (which would need more field length to both take-off and landing) in certain periods of the day associated with atmospheric conditions for a higher probability of an accident. For example, morning period showed a bigger probability of occurrence of accident due to the possibility of foggy conditions and low ceiling height and horizontal visibility. For this airport, actions lowering severity for the studied scenarios would be a much more difficult task. Since the airports site is already surrounded by urban infrastructure, any action related to acquiring more land in order to build safety areas would represent a large amount of money involved. Threshold 35 L lack of RESA is the most critical fact since it does not have any plain terrain beyond thresholds runway strip. For the case of veer-off presented in scenario 3, one alternative action would be the using new operational practices for aircraft controlling such as prohibiting aircrafts to be in holding positions while another aircrafts is about to landing in threshold 17 R. Unfortunately, this action would represent an important capacity loss, especially during peak time.
7 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

unfeasible, such as acquiring more land to build safety areas or moving apron to another area outside the runway strip. This work showed the calculated risk for accidents in that airport summarizing three scenarios, classified as catastrophic. The probability varies along the year, due to possible different atmospheric conditions, however the calculated probabilities showed that most of the time, the airport operates with a risk classified as unacceptable. This means that, alternative actions are indispensable to lower the risk to an acceptable level. Future research could be developed in order to evaluate the economic impact of alternative actions, including the proposal of new aircraft types and mixes that could be used in this airport. Considering the results of this paper, a research effort could be developed to verify whether increasing the share of business and regional jets could considerably reduce the risk of operations in that airport. Also, future research could gather more detailed hourly operational information for the airport site which would yield a more precise analysis for the risk evaluation.

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