Context
The safety emergency trajectory for aircraft in degraded flyability mode does not exist except for Engine OUT SID (standard instrumental departure) situations where airliners have to develop specific flight procedure in an engine loss situation. The current process of defining emergency trajectories and landing sites remains completely manual and is fully relying on pilot capabilities of situation analysis.
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In emergency situations, an automated support to the pilot can provide him a clear advantage with the analysis of possible solutions to land the aircraft in classic and non-classic areas and with an unplanned trajectory. We can observe in history several cases of successful landings with very degraded aircraft capabilities where the safety of the passengers and integrity of the aircraft structure have been preserved. We can list the Hudson case with the “landing” on a river after a double engine failure caused by bird collision and the extraordinary landing by TACA International Flight 110 in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1988 caused by degraded meteorological conditions.
Brace for impact - Sully. Credit : (c) Warner Bros
A Taca jetliner makes an emergency landing on a levee in Eastern New Orleans after engines lose power in 1988. (Ted Jackson)
SafeNcy - the Safe Emergency Trajectory Generator as an answer
Concept
The objective of this project is to contribute to the design of new on-board function for future Flight Management Systems to enhance the efficiency in the management of emergency situations.
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In case of the loss of certain aircraft capabilities such as climbing, turning, or accelerating, the considered new-function will focus on supporting the crew members in identifying the safest and easiest potential landing site and to provide a feasible trajectory to reach it.
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An abnormal situation considered as an emergency will trigger the SafeNcy logic, which will compute the best emergency trajectory to the best landing site depending on the kind of failure experienced, landing site availability, accurate meteorological information (including hazards to avoid, but also current wind and temperature profiles, essential for an accurate trajectory computation) and ATC environment.
This project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 864771. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Clean Sky 2 JU members other than the Union.
