Quantifying and characterising aviation accident risk factors

This paper compares the exposure of normal flights to a number of meteorological factors that also exist for flights resulting in accidents. The factors examined include visibility, ceiling height, temperature, crosswind, tailwind and instrument or visual meteorological conditions. Differences in exposure to these factors are examined and a measure of accident propensity related to different levels of risk exposure is quantified based on relative accident involvement ratios. Four categories of aircraft accidents relevant to the assessment of airport safety areas are examined.