LIFETIME

2.0 Definition of Aviation Hazard

 Hazard – Condition or object with the potential of causing injuries to personnel, damage to equipment or
structures, loss of material, or reduction of ability to perform a prescribed function.

 Consequence – Potential outcome(s) of the hazard

A wind of 15 knots blowing directly across the runway is a hazard

A pilot may not be able to control the aircraft during takeoff or landing is one of the consequences of the
hazard

The scope of hazards existing in aviation operation environment is very wide. That is why hazard identification is a
complex process as it considers extensive range of possible sources of failure. Depending on the nature and size of
the organization, its operational scope and environment there are different factors to consider during hazard
identification. The following factors listed in ICAO Doc 9859 Safety Management Manual are examples of
common hazard sources in aviation:

 Design factors, including equipment and task design;

  Procedures and operating practices, including their documentation and checklists, and their validation under
actual operating conditions;

 Communications, including the medium, terminology and language;

 Personnel factors, such as company policies for recruitment, training and remuneration;

 Organisational factors, such as the compatibility of production and safety goals, the allocation of resources,
operating pressures and the corporate safety culture;

 Work environment factors, such as ambient noise and vibration, temperature, lighting and the availability of
protective equipment and clothing;

 Regulatory oversight factors, including the applicability and enforceability of regulations; the certification of
equipment, personnel and procedures; and the adequacy of surveillance audits; and

 Defenses, including such factors as the provision of adequate detection and warning systems, the error
tolerance of equipment and the extent to which the equipment is hardened against failures

2.1 Types of hazards

2.1.1 Natural Hazards

Types of Natural Hazards
 Severe weather or climatic events:
E.g.: hurricanes, major winter storms, drought, tornadoes, thunderstorms lightning, and wind shear
 Adverse weather conditions:
E.g.: Icing, freezing precipitation, heavy rain, snow, winds, and restrictions to visibility
 Geophysical events:
E.g.: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods and landslides
 Geographical conditions:
E.g.: adverse terrain or large bodies of water
 Environmental events:
E.g.: wildfires, wildlife activity, and insect or pest infestation.
 Public health events:
E.g.: epidemics of influenza or other diseases

2.1.2 Technical Hazards

Examples

 Deficiencies regarding:
 E.g.: aircraft and aircraft components, systems, subsystems and related equipment
 E.g.: an organization’s facilities, tools, and related equipment
 E.g.: facilities, systems, sub-systems and related equipment that are external to the
organization
2.1.3 Economic Hazards
Examples
Major trends related to:
 Growth
 Recession
 Cost of material or equipment
2.2 Thunderstorms
Thunderstorms are one of the most beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. As a pilot, however, thunderstorms are
one of the most hazardous conditions you can encounter. All thunderstorms can produce severe turbulence, low
level wind shear, low ceilings and visibilities, hail and lightning. Each of these hazards can be difficult to cope with;
if all these conditions arrive at once, it can be disastrous.
Understanding basic thunderstorm formation and structure can help you make safe decisions.
Thunderstorms are formed by a process called convection, defined as the transport of heat energy. Because the
atmosphere is heated unevenly, an imbalance can occur which thunderstorms attempt to correct. Three things are
needed for convection to be a significant hazard to flight safety: moisture, lift and instability

 Moisture
—Sufficient moisture must be present for clouds to form. Although convection occurs in the atmosphere without
visible clouds, think thermals on a warm afternoon, moisture not only is the source of a visible cloud, but also fuels
the convection to continue. As the warm air rises, it cools, and the water vapor in the air condenses into cloud
droplets. The condensation releases heat, allowing the rising air to stay buoyant and continue to move upward.
 Lift
—There are many ways for air to be lifted in the atmosphere. Convection, or buoyancy, is one method. Other
meteorological methods include fronts, low pressure systems, interactions between thunderstorms, and
interactions between the jet stream and the surface weather systems. Air also can be lifted by mechanical lift, such
as when it is forced up and over a mountain range. Regardless of how the air is lifted, if the lift is enough to make
the air warmer than the surrounding air, convection can continue.
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 Instability
—In general, as you increase in altitude, the air temperature cools up to the top of the troposphere. Of course,
around fronts, mountains and in shallow layers near the ground, this is not always the case. How fast air cools is a
measure of atmospheric stability. Meteorologists refer to this vertical change in temperature as the lapse rate.
Outside of extremes, the temperature generally decreases from between 2.7oF - 5.4oF per 1000 feet. If the actual
rising air cools slower than the lapse rate, the air remains relatively warm compared to the surroundings, and it
continues to rise.

2.2.1 Three Stages of Thunderstorms

1. Towering Cumulus Stage: This is the stage of a thunderstorm once convection has begun and a cloud is
visible. These building clouds are made entirely of liquid water. This stage is characterized by upward
motion throughout the entire cloud. Aviation hazards from this stage include turbulence and icing. Even
though the cloud is composed of all liquid, some of the liquid is “supercooled,” in other words, liquid water
can exist at temperatures below the normal freezing point.
2. Mature Stage: This stage is characterized by the production of precipitation. Both updrafts and downdrafts
are present.
Lightning is being produced. The mature thunderstorm contains water, super cooled water and
ice.
3. Dissipating Stage: During this final stage, the updraft has ceased and the storm is dominated by downdrafts.
Precipitation may still occur, but will decrease with time as moisture is depleted. This dissipating
thunderstorm contains mostly ice.

2.2.2 Hazards Associated with Thunderstorms

It is wise to avoid thunderstorms, as a flight instructor once said “A thunderstorm is never as bad inside as it looks
from the outside—it is worse.”
Thunderstorms contain many hazards to aviation such as the following:
a) Lightning:
 By definition, all thunderstorms contain lightning. Although the NWS will mention lightning as a hazard in
some warning products, lightning is not a criteria used to determine if a thunderstorm is severe. As an
aviator, you should be aware that lightning can strike more than 10 miles from a thunderstorm.
Lightning can strike the ground, another cloud or discharge into clear air.

Effects on aircraft
The effects of lighting on an aircraft (and its crew and passengers) are many.
- If lightning strikes a previously sound, metal bonded structure, the aircraft will remain structurally sound, and
the passengers and crew will not be directly affected by the strike’s voltage and current. However, entrance
and exit burn marks will be evident on the skin of the aircraft.
- If the discharge is adjacent to or through structures such as aerials, then these structures may be destroyed.
- The effect of a lightning strike on both passengers and crew will induce shock, and possibly fear.
- At night a lightning strike may cause the crew to suffer temporary blindness, or degraded vision.
- Lighting strikes on modern composite materials will cause de-lamination of the material.
- If such strikes are upon structurally important areas of the aircraft, its integrity may be compromised. For this
reason, lightning strikes on composite helicopter blades are particularly hazardous.
- Following a lightning strike, electrical/electronic systems may fail, with circuit breakers tripping.
- Magnetic compasses will become untrustworthy.
- Radio communications and navigation equipment may be adversely affected.
- The Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) will often point into the storm’s centre.

b) Turbulence:
Pilot reports from aircraft encountering thunderstorms have noted up and down drafts exceeding 6000 feet per
minute. Turbulence exceeding the performance capability of most aircraft can be found in and around
thunderstorms.

Effects on the aircraft

At its simplest, convective turbulence will result in ‘bumpiness’ in flight. Of course, as the intensity of
turbulence increases, its effect will increase in accordance with the ICAO categories. Ultimately, depending on
aircraft type, severe turbulence may cause structural damage to an aircraft. Airlines are most concerned with
injuries to passengers which may lead to costly compensation claims.

c) Wind Shear:
Thunderstorm outflow can cause extreme changes in wind speed and direction near the surface during
critical phases of flight. Microbursts are possible with many thunderstorms, as is heavy rain. Often virga
and blowing dust on the surface are your only clues to the presence of a microburst.
d) Icing:
Icing occurs if pecipitation aggregates on the aircraft or at or within parts of it. There are several impact
mechanism. The dominant one is that super-cooled liquid water impinges on the aircraft and freezes
instantaneously. Icing may occur

 in-flight
Or at the surface:

 Ground icing.
One might also categorize icing into:

 Airframe icing
 Engine icing. Normally, forecasts of icing are for airframe icing only.
Airframe icing is a serious aviation hazard. The possible range of effects on an aircraft are listed below:

 Reduction in the aerodynamic properties

 Change in flight performance
 Increase in weight and uneven loading
 Engine intakes become blocked
  Undercarriage retraction/extension problems
 Control surfaces jam or become stiff
 Pitot tubes become blocked.
 Communications affected
 Vision impaired
Icing Case Study

The following is an excerpt from an Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report on a Saab 340 in-flight
loss of control on 28th June 2002. It occurs after the aircraft had levelled out at its minimum descent altitude of
3810 ft as a result of airframe icing encountered during final descent of a flight from Sydney to Bathurst, New
South Wales. The aircraft initially rolled to the left and pitched down without warning and during the recovery
from the first stall, the aircraft rolled to the right and descended to 112 ft before altitude was recovered. The final
investigation ATSB report into that serious incident has found that pilots lost control because of low airspeed,
airframe icing and the operation of the aircraft autopilot system, and that they did not receive a prior stall warning.
One might further conclude that ice accretion must have been slightly asymmetric on the aircraft such that the
autopilot could not cope any more with the generated roll moment.

2.3 Other Aviation Hazards

a) Heavy Rain
Effects

Heavy or very heavy rates of rainfall will clearly have a detrimental impact upon general visibility.
However, in addition to any true meteorological reduction of visibility, raindrops impacting the windscreen/canopy
will additionally reduce visibility.

Windscreen wipers (if fitted) may not be able to fully cope with the rainfall rate. Light, non pressurized aircraft may
find the heaviest rain rates allow water ingestion into the cabin/cockpit/engine compartments with subsequent
risks to electronic equipment. Civil airliner +engines are tested and certified to ensure that engines will normally
not ‘flame out’ under conditions of intense rainfall and water ingestion. Hurricanes are a different issue. Runway
flooding, or areas of deep standing water will affect braking action, and may result in asymmetric braking and
possible sliding off runways. Low cloud (stratus pannus) may form in periods of moderate or heavy rain, when it
had not previously been expected (see below).

b) Snow
Snow is solid precipitation in the form of individual, usually branched, ice crystals, or an agglomeration of
those ice crystals. The precise nature will depend upon the temperature and conditions in which they develop. At
temperatures warmer than about -5 C the crystals tend to agglomerate.

Effects on Aircraft

Even slight rates of snowfall have a serious detrimental effect upon visibility. Non-melting snow flakes at
sub-zero temperatures will be largely deflected in the airstream and not adversely affect the majority of the
airframe.

However, where snow is deflected into engine nacelles or into cavities such as open wheel wells, the snow
may collect and ‘pack’ to create obstructions. Such obstructions may restrict airflow into engines, or prevent
retraction of landing gear.

On the ground, whilst stationary or taxiing, snowfall may accumulate on the airframe, disturbing the
aerodynamics and adding to the all up weight of the aircraft.

Windscreens may become obscured with snow, with windscreen wipers becoming ineffective (if fitted).

Pitot tubes may become blocked, with resultant errors in airspeed and altitude indication. Wet (melting)
snow may not be so easily deflected by airflow, and may more readily ‘pack’ against blunt surfaces of the airframe.
As noted above, when snow packs into and against engine nacelles, wheel wells, or engine intake grilles, significant
consequences may result. Runway contamination by snow will significantly degrade braking action. Snow
accumulations will also obscure runway lights and possibly make it difficult to discern the runway from the
adjacent grass areas, especially given that visibility will be anyway degraded.

Brief Case Study

On the 13 January 1982, an Air Florida 737 crashed on take off from Washington DC’s National Airport into the
Potomac River. Under conditions of snowfall and blowing snow, and after de-icing activity, the aircraft had failed to
remain airborne after takeoff. Notwithstanding the de-icing activity, snow had been seen to have settled on the
wings prior to take off. Contributory to the accident had been the use of reverse thrust as an attempt to taxi away
from the terminal when tow trucks had been unable to pull the aircraft back. The reverse thrust is believed to have
drawn snow and ice into the engines, adversely affecting a sensor that gave cockpit indications of engine power. To
that end, the aircraft took off with snow covered wings and with insufficient thrust from the engines.

c) Fog
For aviation purposes, it is a condition that the horizontal visibility due to such phenomena is reduced to less
than 1000 m. Fog may be further classified as being formed by advective processes or radiative cooling processes.
Hill fog and frontal fog are also descriptors commonly used. Fog may cover a large, continuous area or it may form
in patches possibly only covering small parts of an airfield. If the fog layer is less than 2 meters deep overland it is
termed shallow fog.

Effects on Aircraft

Fog seriously degrades visibility, to such a degree that landing may be impossible. Only the most expensive of
aircraft (Civil Airliners/military aircraft) may be able to ‘auto land’ under such circumstances, and then only at
suitably equipped airports. Even allowing for the technical ability, airline and military procedures may prohibit
‘auto landings’ under certain conditions.

Ice fog has similar visibility restrictions, but in addition untreated taxiways and runways may be coated with a thin
layer of ice. Pilots may be given a false sense of security when over-flying an airfield, since structures and runways
may be quite clear to the pilot when looking down from directly above the airfield. However, when descending
onto the approach, and trying to view the airfield at a slant angle through the fog, the pilot may very quickly lose
all visual cues and find themselves in very serious difficulty.

d) Low cloud/poor visibility

e) Sandstorms/duststorms
f) Squalls/line squalls
A squall is simply defined as a sudden, temporary increase of the wind. It is specified as an increase in the
mean wind by at least 16 kt, to a minimum value of 22 kt, and sustained for a period of 1 minute, then dying
away comparatively suddenly.