Getting to the Point: A Safety Assessment of Arrival Operations in Terminal Airspace

摘要

The article entitled "2020 Foresight" in a recent edition of Air Traffic Control Quarterly [ATC Quarterly, 2011] explained why traditional approaches to safety assessment are inadequate for the major operational and technology changes that are planned for introduction into European Air Traffic Management (ATM) up to 2020 and beyond. The article showed that a broader approach is needed in order to address the positive contribution that a fully functioning ATM service makes to aviation safety (the new, "success" approach) and not just the negative effects that failures within the ATM system might have on the risk of an accident (the traditional "failure" approach). Now, in this article, the example of a new operational concept for arrival management in Terminal airspace, known as Point Merge, is used to detail how the broader approach to safety assessment, developed by EUROCONTROL, is being applied to projects typical of SESAR - the Single European Sky ATM Research programme (equivalent to the US NextGen programme). The article shows that the broader approach is unique in that it starts with a safety validation of the operational concept, for all foreseeable operational conditions - i.e. normal, abnormal and internal-failure scenarios. This approach is followed by the equivalent validation of the high-level design of the corresponding ATM system, to ensure that it is capable of realising the concept from a safety viewpoint. The third stage - implementation of the design - is not addressed herein since it does not raise significant issues beyond those associated with a traditional failure-only approach. The reader will find this concept to be a more intelligent way of doing a safety assessment as well as finding Point Merge to be a smart and safe way to manage arrivals!