Statistical Characteristics of Aircraft Arrival Tracks

The statistical characterization of flight tracks is a critical component of safety-analysis models. This paper presents an analysis of multilateration data using an extension of an algorithm given in Jeddi et al. (2006). Key results are as follows. The separation distribution does not appear to change much at different points along the approach path. The left tail of separation (corresponding to the smallest separation values) does not appear to be heavy-tailed. This is positive from a safety perspective. If we extrapolate this behavior beyond the observed data, we conjecture that smaller separations have probabilities that rapidly decay to effectively zero. Lateral positions near the threshold do not appear to be heavy tailed either. Finally, estimates of the final-approach separation variability are consistent with previously published results. Shortle, J., Y. Zhang, J. Wang. 2010. Statistical characteristics of aircraft arrival tracks. To appear in Transportation Research Record. 3