Evaluation of ADS-B Surveillance Data to Identify Flight Operations with Reduced Safety Margin in the National Airspace System

As part of the FAA's plans for modernization of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) will be the basis of the future surveillance system in the US, supplemented by the current Radar system. With significantly more frequent updates and higher data quality than radar, ADS-B provides unprecedented access to general aviation operational data. Given this unique opportunity, Aurora proposes to conduct an in-depth analysis of the potential for ADS-B derived operational data to identify operations with a reduced safety margin – similar to the FAA's voluntary Flight Operation Quality Assurance (FOQA) safety program. Since comprehensive operational data of this quality and magnitude has not been available until now, new and innovative approaches for their analysis are needed. Ultimately, the goal of the proposed effort is to provide a "big data" capability for using ADS-B data to identify the underlying causes and pre-cursers for a majority of aviation accidents. The insights from this analysis could then be used to identify approaches for improving aviation safety and lead to recommendations about where to focus educational efforts, recurring training or proficiency checks. These insights may also lead to the re-design or introduction of avionics that specifically address the true underlying causes of accidents.