SKYbrary

Last updated

SKYbrary is a wiki created by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, International Civil Aviation Organization, and the Flight Safety Foundation to create a comprehensive source of aviation safety information freely available online. It was launched [1] in May 2008 on a platform based on MediaWiki. The Flight Safety Foundation (a founding member) defines SKYbrary's goal as: capturing authoritative aviation industry information and create cumulative knowledge, especially with regard to critical safety issues. [2] HindSight Magazine related to SKYbrary received the Cecil A. Brownlow Publication Award [3] in 2009 at the FSF International Air Safety Seminar (IASS).

Contents

SKYbrary's way of working

SKYbrary is driven by a risk based knowledge management approach, [4] meaning:

  1. Information must be in the right place at the right time.
  2. Managing knowledge helps ensure that organizations have appropriate capabilities in place (linking ability to innovate and capacity planning).
  3. Effective management of knowledge helps organizations share best practice more effectively, avoiding duplication of effort, whatever the daily operational constraints.

SKYbrary's Management and Quality Assurance process is described in detail on Skybrary Content Management. [5]

SKYbrary uses the Semantic MediaWiki extension to annotate semantic data within articles.

SKYbrary structure

The SKYbrary front page gives visitors access to aviation safety knowledge via three portals. Each portal then contains numerous categories of articles chosen because of their relevance to aviation safety professionals. Current categories in use:

Operational Issues

Enhancing Safety

Safety Regulations

Miscellaneous

Related Research Articles

Air traffic control A public service provided for the purpose of maintaining the safe and orderly flow of air traffic

Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots. In some countries, ATC plays a security or defensive role, or is operated by the military.

Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Articles related to aviation include:

Controlled flight into terrain Aviation accident in which a pilot unintentionally flies the aircraft into an obstacle

In aviation, a controlled flight into terrain is an accident in which an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, a body of water or an obstacle. In a typical CFIT scenario, the crew is unaware of the impending disaster until it is too late. The term was coined by engineers at Boeing in the late 1970s.

Wake turbulence Turbulence that follows behind aircraft travelling through air

Wake turbulence is a disturbance in the atmosphere that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. It includes various components, the most important of which are wingtip vortices and jetwash. Jetwash refers to the rapidly moving gases expelled from a jet engine; it is extremely turbulent, but of short duration. Wingtip vortices, however, are much more stable and can remain in the air for up to three minutes after the passage of an aircraft. It is therefore not true turbulence in the aerodynamic sense, as true turbulence would be chaotic. Instead, it refers to the similarity to atmospheric turbulence as experienced by an aircraft flying through this region of disturbed air.

Aviation safety A state in which risks associated with aviation are at an acceptable level

Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of aircraft and aviation infrastructure. The aviation industry is subject to significant regulation and oversight.

European Union Aviation Safety Agency European Union civil aviation authority

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) with responsibility for civil aviation safety. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs investigation and monitoring. It collects and analyses safety data, drafts and advises on safety legislation and co-ordinates with similar organisations in other parts of the world.

Ground crew

In aviation, ground crew are airline personnel that service aircraft while on the ground – as opposed to aircrew, who operate an aircraft while in flight. The term groundcrew is used by both commercial airlines and military aviation.

ENAIRE

ENAIRE is the air navigation manager in Spain and Western Sahara, certified for the provision of en route, approach and aerodrome control services. As a public corporate entity attached to the Ministry for Public Works, it is responsible for air traffic control, aeronautical information and the Communication, navigation and surveillance networks necessary so that air companies and their aircraft can fly safely, fluidly and in an orderly manner within Spanish airspace.

Eurocontrol

The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, commonly known as Eurocontrol, is an international organisation working to achieve safe and seamless air traffic management across Europe. Founded in 1960, Eurocontrol currently has 41 member states and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It has several local sites as well, including R&D activities in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, the Institute of Air Navigation Training (IANS) in Luxembourg, and the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The organisation employs approximately two thousand people, and operates with an annual budget in excess of half a billion Euro.

Pilot error Decision, action or inaction by a pilot of an aircraft

Pilot error generally refers to an accident in which an action or decision made by the pilot was the cause or a contributing factor that led to the accident, but also includes the pilot's failure to make a correct decision or take proper action. Errors are intentional actions that fail to achieve their intended outcomes. Chicago Convention defines accident as "An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft [...] in which [...] a person is fatally or seriously injured [...] except when the injuries are [...] inflicted by other persons." Hence the definition of the "pilot error" does not include deliberate crash.

A semantic wiki is a wiki that has an underlying model of the knowledge described in its pages. Regular, or syntactic, wikis have structured text and untyped hyperlinks. Semantic wikis, on the other hand, provide the ability to capture or identify information about the data within pages, and the relationships between pages, in ways that can be queried or exported like a database through semantic queries.

Semantic MediaWiki

Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is an extension to MediaWiki that allows for annotating semantic data within wiki pages, thus turning a wiki that incorporates the extension into a semantic wiki. Data that has been encoded can be used in semantic searches, used for aggregation of pages, displayed in formats like maps, calendars and graphs, and exported to the outside world via formats like RDF and CSV.

2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident Attempted shootdown of DHL cargo airliner near Baghdad International Airport

On 22 November 2003, shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq, an Airbus A300B4-200F cargo plane, registered OO-DLL and owned by European Air Transport, was struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile while on a scheduled flight to Muharraq, Bahrain. Severe wing damage resulted in a fire and complete loss of hydraulic flight control systems. Because outboard left wing fuel tank 1A was full at takeoff, there was no fuel-air vapour explosion. Liquid jet fuel dropped away as 1A disintegrated. Inboard fuel tank 1 was pierced and leaking.

In aviation, a mid-air collision is an accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. Owing to the relatively high velocities involved and the likelihood of subsequent impact with the ground or sea, very severe damage or the total destruction of at least one of the aircraft usually results.

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an ongoing modernization project of the United States National Airspace System (NAS). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began work on NextGen improvements in 2007 and plans to have all major components in place by 2025.

V speeds Standard terms to define airspeeds

In aviation, V-speeds are standard terms used to define airspeeds important or useful to the operation of all aircraft. These speeds are derived from data obtained by aircraft designers and manufacturers during flight testing for aircraft type-certification. Using them is considered a best practice to maximize aviation safety, aircraft performance, or both.

Flight Safety Foundation Independent organization advocating for aviation safety

The Flight Safety Foundation is an independent, nonprofit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety. FSF brings together aviation professionals from all sectors to help solve safety problems facing the industry. With a membership that spreads throughout the world, FSF brings an international perspective to aviation issues for its members, the media, and the traveling public.

Emirates Flight 407

Emirates Flight 407 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Emirates from Melbourne to Dubai, using an Airbus A340-500 aircraft. On 20 March 2009, the flight failed to take off properly at Melbourne Airport, hitting several structures at the end of the runway before eventually climbing enough to return to the airport for a safe landing. Although no fatalities or injuries resulted, damage to the aircraft was severe enough for the event to be classified by Australian Transport Safety Bureau as an "accident". It has been described "as close as we have ever come to a major aviation catastrophe in Australia" by aviation officials.

Thomson Airways Flight 1526 2017 aviation incident

On 21 July 2017, a Boeing 737-800 belonging to and operated by Sunwing Airlines Inc. and operating as Thomson Airways Flight 1526 from Belfast International Airport and bound for Corfu, Greece with 185 people aboard, suffered a "serious incident" during takeoff, colliding with a runway approach light during departure. The incident was investigated by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch and determined to be the result of an incorrect temperature input into the aircraft's flight computer resulting in underperformance at take-off. The area beyond the runway and the terrain beyond were largely unobstructed, and the aircraft eventually climbed away undamaged. The remainder of the flight to Corfu was uneventful. The "serious incident" at take-off was realized and reported when airport staff subsequently observed minor ground damage. The investigation report concluded that the crew could not reasonably have been expected to recognize the anomalously low speed sooner or intervene more effectively. The report listed several examples of aircraft underperformance at takeoff, reviewed the history of relevant industry efforts, and recommended that a Takeoff Acceleration Monitoring System and associated certification standards should be developed without further delay.

Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) American commercial aviation safety

The Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) is a US aviation safety partnership between regulators, manufacturers, operators and professional unions, research groups, international organizations to further enhance safety. Founded in 1997 with a goal to reduce the fixed-wing commercial aviation fatality rate in the United States by 80 percent by 2007. By 2007 CAST was able to report that by implementing safety enhancements, the fatality rate of commercial air travel in the United States was reduced by 83 percent. In 2008, the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) won the Collier Trophy. In 2010, CAST envisioned a further reduction in fatalities of fifty percent by 2025.

References

  1. EUROCONTROL Press Release
  2. Flight Safety Foundation magazine, Aero Safety World about SKYbrary
  3. Cecil A. Brownlow Publication Award Archived 2010-08-14 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Kruizinga, Eelco; Blajev, Tzvetomir (May–June 2008). "SKYBRARY: A WIKI FOR AVIATION SAFETY KNOWLEDGE". Knowledge Management Review. 11 (2): 18–23. ISSN   1369-7633.
  5. "Skybrary Content Management". SKYbrary.