Experiences in mining aviation safety data

Abstract

The goal of data analysis in aviation safety is simple: improve safety. However, the path to this goal is hard to identify. What data mining methods are most applicable to this task? What data are available and how should they be analyzed? How do we focus on the most interesting results? Our answers to these questions are based on a recent research project we completed. The encouraging news is that we found a number of aviation safety offices doing commendable work to collect and analyze safety-related data. But we also found a number of areas where data mining techniques could provide new tools that either perform analyses that were not considered before, or that can now be done more easily.