Description

FORAS is a pro-active, pre-flight aviation risk assessment system that considers flight and flight related operational variables (including crew, aircraft, and airport risk factors) to generate a single flight operational risk index used to enhance the crew's and aviation organization's risk awareness.

Discussion

Use

An organization can use FORAS to provide a pre-flight risk assessment to air crews and dispatchers. The assessment provides a relative risk index (i.e. score) between 1(low) and 10(high). In addition, the score is broken down by categories (e.g. crew, aircraft, flight sector/city-pair). FORAS can highlight which category and which risk factors in that category may be contributing to a high risk score.

Technical Background

FORAS risk represents risk as a hierarchical decomposition of overall risk. At the top of the hierarchy is the overall risk index for a specific category or type of risk (e.g. Approach and Landing Risk, CFIT Risk). Below that are the major sub-categories of risk factors, such as Crew Risk, Aircraft Risk, and City-Pair Risk. Crew Risk is composed of factors such as fatigue, experience level, and crew pairing. Aircraft Risk has factors such as suitability for the specific flight and any MEL items. City-Pair Risk is composed of factors such as Airport, Air Traffic Control, and Weather. Each of these risk factors is further decomposed into measurable values. A fuzzy-logic based set of rules combines all the values into the final risk score for a specific risk category.

Related Articles

• Flight Operations Risk Assessment Checklist - New Destination
• Flight Operations Risk Assessment Checklist - Active Runway Crossing

References

More information on FORAS is available at http://foras.com.tw/