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Future Aviation Safety Team (FAST)

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This article was originated by Brian Smith of NASA

Article Information
Category: General General
Content source: SKYbrary About SKYbrary
Content control: EUROCONTROL EUROCONTROL

Contents

Description

FAST is a group of multi-disciplinary, international safety experts whose primary focus is emerging and future risks across aviation and space sectors. The FAST philosophy promotes a holistic, system-wide view of safety in possible future aerospace environments.

History

The FAST team was created under the Joint Safety Strategy Initiative (JSSI) of the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) early in 1998. The JSSI coordinated safety efforts with the US Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST): while CAST would focus on historic safety, FAST would address prospective safety at the preliminary hazard/risk assessment stage.

CAST analyzed commercial aviation accidents in order to identify problem statements and to develop data based safety enhancement action plans. In parallel, FAST developed a methodology in 2006 aimed at identifying changes affecting the global aviation system, and potential hazards that could result from these changes and their interaction. Results of these complementary approaches were then shared among CAST and the JSSI.

In 2006, FAST became an associated team within the European Commercial Aviation Safety Team (ECAST) of the European Strategic Safety Initiative (ESSI). ESSI succeeded JSSI on 28 April 2006, and revitalised partnership-based safety efforts in Europe. The ESSI has three components: ECAST, EHEST (European Helicopter Safety Team) and EGAST (European General Aviation Safety Team).

Recent Work

In 2009, the FAST was tasked by the Joint Implementation Measurement Data Analysis Team (JIMDAT) within the U.S. CAST to perform a vulnerability assessment of 14 Safety Enhancements from the CAST safety plan. The JIMDAT wanted to know if the effectiveness of key Safety Enhancements would be compromise by changing conditions in a three to five-year time horizon. In early 2011, the FAST submitted its assessment report to the JIMDAT. At the request of the JIMDAT, the FAST also updated the 2006 methodology described below and conducted a “beta test” of the process using the operational concept, Optimized Profile Descent.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) released it first European Aviation Safety Plan (EASP) in 2010. Within this plan is a section entitled “Emerging Risks.” Various entities were identified to execute tasks within this section for purposes of managing the risks EASA envisioned would emerge in the mid- and far-term aviation future. One of the Emerging Risks tasks, EME1.1 “Methodology to assess future risks” was allocated to the FAST in May of 2011. This task consists of three phases: 1. Initial review of existing methods, 2. Methodology development, and 3. Methodology proof of concept. The FAST completed Phase 1 in October 2011 and will finish the work program by September 2012. This effort represents an update to the 2006 FAST Methodology Handbook described below.

A white paper was published describing the foundational concepts of the methodology under development.

The expected outcome of this task is a means by which stakeholder organizations can identify and prioritize risks that remains after future mitigations and system drift are taken into account. Rankings of these risks will help guide resource allocations toward improving future safety.

Outputs from FAST activity are provided to research organizations such as NASA, the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR), European Space Agency, and others to assist in future research portfolio development and validation.

FAST Areas of Change

FAST has identified and maintains a repository of more than 100 Areas of Change (AoC). An AoC is defined as any phenomenon that will affect the safety of the aviation system either from within or from domains external to aviation. In 2006 the FAST developed a method for prospective safety analysis. The FAST method is a “prognostic” or “predictive” approach aimed at discovering future hazards arising as a consequence of future changes and of their interactions. The results from the analysis are utilized to prioritize, develop, and implement mitigating actions.

The FAST, in concert with multi-national industry and government representatives as well as other interested parties, maintains a comprehensive list of AoC that may affect the future aviation system. The time horizon for the AoC within this list varies between 5 and 25 years into the future. As far as we know, this list is the only dedicated, comprehensive compilation of transformational phenomena affecting the global aviation system. A searchable inventory of current FAST Areas of Change is available on the FAST NLR website


The FAST AoC list is re-audited on a regular basis (approximately every two years) by the FAST Core Team. The exercise is accomplished in a meeting of the FAST Core Team supplemented by a group of experts having a broad knowledge of the aviation system. In addition, the FAST Core Team continuously monitors the aviation system and the external environment for new AoCs that may arise. The FAST has a well-defined process for intake and evaluation of potential new AoCs.

Application

The 2006 FAST method can be used for the Safety Assessment of planned changes (new operational concepts or architectures, new or modified system designs, operations, procedures, etc.) and unplanned changes (e.g. demographic evolution), for Safety Risk Management and Safety Assurance (preliminary hazards identification and analysis, assessment of the need for new controls because of changes in the operational environment), Safety Promotion and more generally, Safety Management (SMS).

  • The FAST method has been used to perform a Preliminary Hazard Analysis of the EUROCONTROL Concept of Operations for European ATM in 2011. A general presentation on the results is contained in the Generic FAST presentation 5 Detailed hazard logs are available on request, write to Rudi den Hertog (rudi.den.hertog@ngaircraft.com) or Brian Smith (Brian.E.Smith@nasa.gov).
  • It has also been used to understand future hazards and emerging risks associated with increasing flight crew reliance on cockpit automation, a topic also related to future ATM systems development. Summary results are located here.

Participating Organizations

  • Aircraft Engineers International
  • Airbus
  • Bombardier Aerospace
  • Directorate General for Civil Aviation, France (Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile, DGAC)
  • European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)
  • European Space Technology and Engineering Centre, European Space Agency (ESTEC/ESA) – observer status
  • Federal Aviation Administration
  • Fokker NextGen
  • National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA)/International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA)

Documentation

The 2006 FAST method is documented in the ATM Safety Techniques and Toolbox jointly developed by EUROCONTROL and the FAA, as part of Action Plan 15.

Related Activities

As a direct follow-up to its work on risk governance deficits, IRGC is now focusing on emerging risks (2010/2011). IRGC defines as “emerging” a risk that is new, or a familiar risk in a new or unfamiliar context or under new context conditions (re-emerging). Emerging risks are issues that are perceived to be potentially significant but which may not be fully understood and assessed, thus not allowing risk management options to be developed with confidence.
iNTeg-Risk is a large-scale integrating project aimed at improving the management of emerging risks, related to “new technologies” in European industry. This is being achieved by building new management paradigm for emerging risks as a set of principles supported by a common language, agreed tools & methods, and Key Performance Indicators, all integrated into a single framework. The project aim is to reduce time-to-market for the lead market EU technologies and promote safety, security, environmental friendliness and social responsibility as a trademark of the EU technologies. The project goal is to improve early recognition and monitoring of emerging risks and decrease reaction times if major accidents involving emerging risks happen.
The main objective of MASCA is to deliver a structure to manage the acquisition and retention of skills and knowledge, through training on organisational processes for managing change. This is addressed to personnel across the air transport system.

Flying in 2050: Executive Summary of the work of the Foresight Commission of the Air and Space Academy

Global Studies and Research conducted by the Millennium Project

Annual Aviation Safety & Forecasting Conferences

Related Organizations

Links to Other Organizations and Initiatives

Further Reading

For further information on FAST, visit the FAST website

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