Fuselage Burnthrough Protection for Increased Postcrash Occupant Survivability: Safety Benefit Analysis Based on Past Accidents

摘要

The objective of this analysis was to assess the potential benefits, in terms of reduction of fatalities and injuries, resulting from improvements in fuselage burnthrough resistance to ground pool fires. The process employed for assessing benefit is considered to give reasonably accurate and consistent results within the limitations imposed by the available data. The methodology gives a reasonable assessment of the tolerance on the predicted levels. Fire hardening of fuselages will provide benefits in terms of enhanced occupant survival and may be found to be cost beneficial if low-cost solutions can be found. The maximum number of lives saved per year in worldwide transport aircraft accidents, over the period covered by the data, was assessed to be 12.5 for the aircraft in its actual configuration and 10.5 for the aircraft configured to later airworthiness requirements.