Root cause analysis of airplane technical failures with Rasmussen's risk management framework (RRMF) based...

Area of Science:

• Aviation Safety
• Risk Management
• Systems Engineering

Background:

• Technical failures in aviation pose significant safety risks.
• Existing taxonomies for failure analysis lack a common framework for data aggregation.
• The Human-Machine-Environment-Procedure (HMEP) model provides a basis for failure analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a standardized taxonomic approach for categorizing technical failures.
• To integrate Rasmussen's Risk Management Framework (RRMF) with the HMEP taxonomy.
• To create a common framework for comparing failure datasets across organizations.

Main Methods:

• Developed an RRMF-based HMEP taxonomy using 30 technical failure occurrences (2002-2020).
• Categorized failure contributing factors into seven mutually exclusive categories and subcategories.
• Applied functional block diagrams and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to 12 environmental control system failures.

Main Results:

• The RRMF-based HMEP taxonomy successfully categorized failure factors.
• Identified specific failure modes for environmental control systems, including sense line leakage and sensor flaws.
• FMEA provided diagnostic information for effective problem identification and resolution.

Conclusions:

• The RRMF-based HMEP taxonomy offers a mental model for accident investigation data collection.
• This approach facilitates the derivation of accident patterns for Safety Management System (SMS) implementation.
• Standardized failure categorization enhances safety analysis and risk management in aviation.