Nimbl, formerly AviationManuals, collected and analyzed aviation operational risks throughout 2024 and yesterday held a webinar to discuss what the company had gleaned from the data. It also released its Common Risks Report, highlighting what it found from roughly 40,000 risk assessment submissions and offering practical mitigation strategies to increase aviation safety.
The report emphasizes the importance of recognizing and mitigating multiple risks that can align and lead to incidents, using James Reason’s Swiss cheese model as a reference. Nimbl’s risk-assessment tool offers a way to assess, track, and manage risks, integrating with scheduling and weather data to provide informed decision-making options for flight crews.
Meanwhile, Kevin Honan, senior operations advisor at Nimbl, and Andrew Madison, assistant v-p and director of safety and loss control at Starr Aviation, discussed key risks and trends in aviation during the webinar. Top risks in their presentation covered airport operations, nighttime operations, crew currency, contaminated surfaces, non-towered airports, and no-passenger operations.
Honan highlighted the importance of risk assessments, noting a significant increase in runway excursions and the need for proper training and procedures. Madison discussed the impact of ground phase incidents on insurance claims, with common claims involving towing, bird strikes, and specialty equipment. Both speakers stressed the importance of SMS, risk assessments, and mitigation strategies in improving safety and reducing insurance costs.
Crew recency is among the most common risk factors, exacerbated by the global Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the importance of maintaining cognitive skills and procedural knowledge among pilots. “This was more of a thing right after Covid, but it still is consistently at the top of our risk assessments,” Honan said. “Lack of recent experience could lead to possible missed items during aircraft operations, such as a checklist item..or it may be easier to feel a little bit behind the aircraft.”
“We've also noticed a lot of the operators have been changing aircraft models, and that might also be why the crew currency item is coming up high as well,” he added. Mitigation includes pairing less experienced crewmembers with more seasoned ones and conducting thorough briefings and debriefings.
Honan noted that airports surrounded by mountains pose significant risks due to reduced aircraft performance and challenging weather conditions. Wet or contaminated runways and taxiways are another environmental risk factor that needs close attention. “This one’s really important because runway excursions continue to be a leading cause of business aviation incidents and accidents,” Honan said. “There were, between 2008 and 2023, 456 runway excursion accidents for business aviation aircraft for the NTSB.”
Madison shared the top 10 whole-loss claims that Starr has seen over the past five years, noting that things like collisions during taxi, bird strikes, and lightning strikes are high on the list. “Another trend that we’ve been seeing on the claim side is the repair costs or replacement costs have definitely increased over the past five-plus years,” he said. “And most of that’s supply chain and inflation [pressures] that we’ve been experiencing over the past few years.”
To leverage risk assessment data for safety improvements, Honan and Madison recommend a focus on key steps. These include identifying top risks through data analysis to sift for both frequency and severity of various risk types and prioritizing mitigation strategies to address the top risks.
Possible mitigations they suggested included additional training for crew currency, creating more robust SOPs for specialty equipment use, and developing stricter procedures for operating in challenging conditions. Training programs, equipment upgrades with a focus on safety, and developing comprehensive risk management processes are possible strategic resource allocation areas for business aviation flight departments.