A review of accidents & incidents on Boeing and Airbus commercial aircraft’s avionics-related system in two decades (1996-2015)

Abstract

Aviation accidents still hit the news even though the growth of technological advancement on commercial aircraft avionic systems has been impressive. Hence, one of the objectives of this study is to plot the time-based graph of commercial aviation accidents, with direct consequence from avionics instrumentations in the period of two decades, from 1996 to 2015. The second objective is to analyse two main aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, in determining specific model of its kind that significantly involved in avionics-related instrumentation as one of the contributing factors that leads to the incidents or accidents. The third objective is to identify which avionics system that most frequently involved in aviation incidents, for both manufacturers. The final objective is to examine the main probable cause that has the highest percentage in those accidents within the said time frame. The method of collecting data is by doing comparative analysis from reliable official websites of four well-known bodies such as National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Aviation Safety Network and Flight Safety Foundation. Results show that misfortune occurrences are directly associated with avionics within the said two decades, which mainly involved Autopilot and Flight Management System (FMS) (14% each), meanwhile the aircraft model Boeing 737 carries the highest percentage of avionics-related incidents or accidents. Nonetheless, 67% of the misfortune occurrences within the scope of study are mainly due to human error instead of technology.

Airbus A32x Versus Boeing 737 Safety Occurrences

“…Relative to all other manufactures, previous studies have shown that both Boeing and Airbus perform better [13]. The conclusion that suggests Airbus is performing better than Boeing in terms of safety mirrors previous studies [14,15]. A reader may ask the question, what would happen if the "anomalous" data points of the Boeing 737MAX were removed?…”

“…The study showed that in a direct comparison, correcting for fleet size, the probability of an accident occurring was greater for Boeing than for Airbus. A related study looked at accidents only involving avionic systems [15]. This noted that while the Boeing 737 was more frequently associated with these accidents, most of these were still attributed to human factors, highlighting the critical role of the end user.…”