Technical Paper
A Method for Accident Reconstruction and Neighborhood Analysis Using an Autonomous Situational Model of Flight and Flight Recorder Data
1999-04-13
1999-01-1434
Flight accidents with modern aircraft are often a result of complex dynamics of the “pilot (automaton1) - vehicle - operational environment” system. When a “critical mass” of the system’s complexity exceeds a certain level, a “chain reaction” of irreversible cause-and-effect links can be spontaneously triggered in the system behavior leading to a catastrophe. An affordable, practically tested technique is proposed to complement current methods of flight accident analysis. A generic situational model of the system behavior and a computer are employed as a virtual test article. This model includes a six-degree-of-freedom non-linear flight dynamics model, a generic situational pilot model (“silicon pilot”), models of anticipated operational factors (conditions), and a tool for flight scenario planning. Available flight recorder data are used to tune the model and reconstruct the accident.