Description
The aviation industry is continuously constrained by weather hazards that affect the safety of personnel on aircraft as well as the efficiency of the National Airspace System (NAS). Wind, visibility, and turbulence are among the most common weather hazards involved in aviation accidents, and air traffic delays and closures. The collaborations between the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) and Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs) are essential to creating and providing accurate forecasts pertaining to aircraft safety. This study examines weather related aviation accidents that occurred in 13 states across the northeast US and vicinity for two time periods: 2000-2001 and 2014-2015. The data used for this study were gathered from the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) aviation database. The data underwent a basic statistical analysis and the statistics that were calculated include whether the aircraft was damaged, the severity of the injuries, the size of the aircraft involved, the phase of flight the aircraft experienced operational difficulties due to weather hazards, and the number of accidents that were solely weather related versus the number of accidents where weather was a contributing factor associated with another type of aviation issue such as a pilot error or mechanical malfunction.
