Meteorological Hazards Impact on Aviation

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction
Primary Hazards and Impact on Aviation
Current Strategies for Mitigation
Current Strategies for Prevention
Investigation into Novel Risk Management Measures
Conclusion
References

Executive Summary

Weather and meteorological phenomena have substantial effects on current aviation. Severe cases of weather events such as hail, thunderstorms, or cloud funnels can result in the limitation of flights, accidents, and even the loss of aircraft, equipment, and lives. As such, the following paper aims to observe the main components influencing accidents as a result of meteorological hazards. Present strategies of mitigation and prevention, and gaps in approaches to maintaining safety within the field of aviation are also vital elements of concern. Accidents often occur as the result of damage to the exterior of the plane or the accumulation of ice in inlets. Incidents may originate from human error even in the case that preventative equipment is fully operational and adequate.

Current measures focus on de-icing techniques, radars indicating turbulence, wind shears, and other harmful weather events, and the maintenance of successful navigation through synthetic vision systems and other modern devices. Ongoing studies suggest that modern systems are underutilized, and expected expansion into technology can be made in order to observe greater safety through prevention. Further research should focus on more efficient forms of de-icing and avoidance of particulates such as dust, heavy rain, and more. Improved automation, guidance services, and autopilot development may benefit aviation processes as human errors will be minimized.

Introduction

Aviation and related fields can be severely impacted by a manner of different meteorological phenomena and a multitude of functions in order to mitigate risks and damages caused by such hazards. Thunderstorms, hail, fog, and glaze have been cited as being the most detrimental to aviation and flights. A study done in a meteorological station revealed that fog and thunderstorms were the most hazardous atmospheric phenomena and would frequently hinder and prevent aviation ( (Arazny & Aaszyca, 2020). With an annual average of 71 days of thunderstorms and 14 days of fog in the region, this presents a prevalent threat to operations as well as the safety of those involved.

Severe thunderstorms, hail, or fog in areas more prone to such meteorological events create further risks and obstacles for local aviation organizations. The following paper aims to outline the severity of issues associated with meteorological hazards and current and potential solutions. Modern technology allows for a variety of problem-solving techniques and devices that mitigate or even prevent drastic consequences. However, the frequency of accidents as a result of weather events is diminishing at a slow pace and requires further intervention to assure the safety of personnel and passengers.

Primary Hazards and Impact on Aviation

Though thunderstorms and related phenomena may limit flights, they are more hazardous to aircraft already in the air. Thunderstorms have the potential to cause turbulence, wind shear, hail, and heavy rain, which is likely to destroy an aircraft depending on the severity of the meteorological features. Hailstones, usually those of larger size, can cause damage to the aircrafts skin which has an impact on the aerodynamics of the plane (Spiridonov & uri, 2020). Severe hail is able to damage propeller and engine blades or block inlets and deposit fragments in air intakes. Taxiways and runways are capable of becoming dangerously slippery by hail, showers, and other water-related meteorological phenomena. In especially harsh conditions, funnel clouds may contribute to the formation of water spouts or tornadoes.

Relation of weather-related accidents to phase of flight operations for years 2009 to 2018

The aforementioned occurrences greatly contribute to accidents and tragedies that take place in aviation. According to a study that observed data from the National Transportation Safety Board, or the NTSB, and the Aviation Safety Reporting System, of the 17,325 accidents yielded by the NTSB, 1,382 were weather-related (Long, 2022). As seen in Figure 1, maneuvering and en route were the two phases of flight that had the highest mortality rates throughout the investigation (Long, 2022). En route led to the phase with the highest number of weather-related incidents. The aforementioned data depicts that while safety trends are improving globally, aviation continues to suffer hazards and losses due to a lack of adequate resources, preventions, or responses due to meteorological phenomena. With certain phenomena being more common than others, the hazard of potential harm to aviation operations can only be avoided through effective prevention and mitigation strategies.

Current Strategies for Mitigation

Modern tactics and resources that aim to reduce hazards of weather and meteorological phenomena in aviation are usually defined either by actions of mitigation or prevention. Mitigation strategies are more frequently utilized and have been in place in many forms of aviation for prolonged periods of time. The current tactics include closed cabins with pressurization, lighting that allows for flight in reduced visibility, and pneumatic boots and heated leading edges that allow for de-icing of dispensers which contribute to ice removal and prevention on wings, tails, inlets, propellers, and other vital surfaces (Yamazaki et al., 2021). Electrical hardening and covers also contribute to reduced damage in the case of lightning strikes.

Anti-lock braking structures and thrust reversers also prevent potentially dangerous skidding on runways that are slick. Crosswind landing gear assures the safety of the aircraft when landing in crosswind conditions and gust alleviation systems limit the motions and turbulence experienced by the airplane (Chen et al., 2019). Wind shear detection systems allow for a safe escape from wind shear encounters. Mitigation strategies may appear to be similar to prevention tactics but vary in their execution. Essentially, mitigation strategies do not avoid or completely cease potential damage to an aircraft but work to incur as little damage as possible and reduce the risk of compromising passenger, staff, and pilot safety.

Current Strategies for Prevention

Prevention strategies focus on the identification of possible or incoming issues and work to completely avoid potential harm. Currently, these include heating and cooling systems that allow aircraft to fly above adverse weather, gyroscopic devices and tools that allow for improved flight in poor visibility, and weather radars that detect and illustrate the intensity of occurring or oncoming conditions. There is also a complex and diverse issue of human factors and the change in the effectiveness of the currently existing equipment and systems. Mitigation processes are often prone to extensive human error and therefore suggest a variety of variables that are present in aviation accidents (Johnson et al., 2019). Similarly, autopilots and auto-throttles function in order to maintain flight paths,s and airport lighting works to signal and outline surface markings to assure correct navigation even at night. Instrument landing systems that uphold precision and guidance even in situations with low visibility and advanced and synthetic viewing systems that improve situational awareness during landing are integral to safety. Aircrafts also possess lighting detection devices that allow pilots to spot the origins of lightning discharges and turbulence-mode radars that can identify convectively-induced turbulence as far as twenty miles ahead of an aircraft.

Modern equipment and strategies are successful in the reduction of many risks that are posed to aviation in terms of meteorological and weather phenomena. However, accidents and incidents continue to occur and cause damage and the loss of lives. As mentioned above, many of these are results of the aircrafts control during maneuvering and en route phases. In order to better understand the current gap in preventive and mitigating measures, it is essential to contrast existing policies and safety measures that are in theoretical or experimental phases.

Investigation into Novel Risk Management Measures

Research and development are vital in maintaining the continuous improvements to safety in aviation in regards to weather and meteorological factors. As such, five areas are of particular importance to any future and ongoing research. These are observation, forecast, dissemination, integration, and mitigation according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Stough, n.d.). Mitigation is the primary component of any future change and current assessments focus on six areas which are turbulence, icing, obstacles to visibility, wake vortices, space weather, and atmospheric particulates. Measures that focus on control systems and the identification of turbulence have been cited to be more effective in informing other preventative measures (Wang et al., 2019). This can suggest that future designs of passenger and cargo airplanes require aircraft responses that prioritize alleviation.

Issues in propulsion, aerodynamics and control capabilities are usually adversely affected by issues in de-icing. Currently, enhanced vision systems are used throughout certain commercial and business sectors in aviation but present a greater potential, especially for terminal and ground tasks (Hecker et al., 2020). This is because they offer substantial benefits such as runway identification when approaching and taxiway identification for ground operations. However, there are still difficulties as real-time verification lacks accuracy and reliability in its current form.

Wake encounters have the potential to be detrimental to aviation operations, and as such, advanced configuration and control systems that reduce the impact of wake turbulence or introduce safe recovery have the potential to be instrumental in overall safer travel. Electromagnetic radiation or charged particles have the potential to cause issues for navigation systems. The current scope of space weather mitigation does not enable the use of higher altitudes, and therefore avoidance of poor weather, and the polar routes (Gultepe et al., 2019). Aircraft engines are likely to be frequently ruined by atmospheric particulates such as heavy rain, dust, sand, volcanic ash, or frozen precipitation. Preventive measures are currently lacking and do not effectively address the issue of avoiding damage from particulates. There are fundamental areas affected by meteorological events that either fail to utilize existing technology in the most efficient manner or have yet to introduce novel measures of prevention.

Conclusion

In this work, the primary issues associated with meteorological events were observed and thunderstorms and hail have been identified as especially detrimental. The following paper presented that advanced technology such as synthetic vision systems or improved de-icing measures should expand into all sectors of aviation. Current obstacles may include the cost of efficiently utilizing available technology. It is recommended that governmental authorities should consider pivoting focus to adapting greater safety measures and research into more efficient production of necessary utilities. The concern of human error in combination with weather-oriented mitigation equipment does not have a clear answer but does indicate that improved automation may be beneficial.

Maneuvering and en route errors are not moderated by available systems that focus on the identification of turbulence, wind shear, and electromagnetic radiation. Recommendations include further development in order to provide improved safety during phases of flights that make the crew and passengers especially vulnerable to potential errors. Improved training is essential in facilitating the progressive growth of employees along with the leaps in technology. The current body of work suggests that steady improvement is likely to continue as technology develops and becomes more efficient and less costly. Future endeavors must prioritize safety measures that contribute to the prevention of common weather-related accidents and incidents.

References

Arazny, A. & Aaszyca, E. (2020). Selected meteorological phenomena posing a hazard to aviation: a case study on Bydgoszcz airport, central Poland. Bulletin of Geography, 18(1), 61-71. Web.

Chen, Q., Wang, Z., Wan, J., Fen, T., Chen, P., Wang, C., & Zhang, C. (Eds.). (2019). Design of a turbulence prevention system based on ATG. IEEE. Web.

Gultepe, I., Sharman, R., Williams, P. D., Zhou, B., Ellrod, G., Minnis, P., Trier, S., Griffin, S., Yum, S. S., Feltz, W., Temimi, M., Pu, Z., Storer, L. N., Kneringer, P., Weston, M. J., Chuang, H., Thobois, L., Dimri, A. P., Dietz, S. J., Franca, B., Almeida, M.V., & Neto, F. L. (2019). A review of high impact weather for aviation meteorology. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 176(1), 1869-1921. Web.

Hecker, P., Angermann, M., Bestmann, U., Dekiert, A., Wolkow, S. (2020). Optical aircraft positioning for monitoring of the integrated navigation system during landing approach. Gyroscopy and Navigation, 10(1), 216-230. Web.

Johnson, I., Blickensderfer, B., Whitehurst, G., Brown, L. J., Ahlstorm, U., & Johnson, M. E. (2019). Weather hazards in general aviation: Human factors research to understand and mitigate the problem. 20th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 421-425. Web.

Long, T. (2022). Analysis of weather-related accident and incident data associated with section 14 CFR part 91 operations. Collegiate Aviation Review International, 40(1), 25-39. Web.

Spiridonov, V. & uri, M. (2020). Meteorological hazards. In V. Spiridonov & M. uri (Ed.), Fundamentals of meteorology (pp. 303-314). Springer.

Stough, P. (n.d.). Aircraft weather mitigation for the next generation art transportation system. NASA. Web.

Yamazaki, M., Jemcov, A., Sakaue, H. (2021). A review on the current status of icing physics and mitigation in aviation. Aerospace, 8(7). Web.

Wang, Y., Wang, C., Sun, W., & Liu, X. (2019). Study on the training of risk prevention and control ability of flight trainees. 1st International Education Technology and Research Conference. Web.

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