21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-1.11.1

THE RISKS OF OVERRUNS

Caves R. E., Kirekland L., Sayce A.*
Loughborough University, United Kingdom; *CAA,UK

Keywords: risk, overrun, safety, airports

As safety regulation moves towards requiring a safety audit, airports will require a method of assessing risk with respect to overruns and their consequences, whether after landing or after an aborted takeoff. This paper describes the development of such a method. Normal protection for the aircraft is provided in ICAO's Annex 14 by the 60m strip at the end of a runway, and a recommendation for the installation of a Runway End Safety Area (RESA) of at least 90 metres. In fact, airports vary considerably both in the likelihood of incurring an overrun and in the consequences, while Annex 14 provides only average protection. The risk assessment must be sensitive to the characteristics of the airport (e.g. runway geometry, approach aids), the type of operation (e.g. class of aircraft, class of operator, traffic levels) and the consequences of an overrun (e.g. terrain, man-made hazards). It is recognised that existing overrun databases are of an insufficient accuracy, and therefore a database has to be compiled specifically for this study. The paper reports the construction of a normalised database, with which to calibrate the overrun risk model.

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