IMPACT OF WEATHER FACTORS ON GO-AROUND OCCURRENCE

Abstract

A “go-around” occurs when an aircraft, which is on final approach, aborts it landing due to unsatisfactory conditions. Go-arounds have a significant impact on the capacity of the airports and pose a serious concern at large airports, especially for airports with diagonal runways. Go-arounds occur due to manual errors, mechanical faults and weather factors. This study focuses on the impact of weather factors on go-around occurrence. The study includes wind gust, storm events (thunderstorm, rain and snow) and visibility as the weather factors under investigation. The author uses a factorial sampling strategy where these factors are segmented into additional categories to create a sampling matrix. After classifying all days into one of the matrix cells, the study randomly selects a single day from each cell for a total of 18 days. The author uses Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (ASDE-X) data for this study. After cleaning the raw data and extracting the arrival aircraft data, the researcher identifies the total number of go-arounds using mapping software. The study compares the categories for each factor of interest to determine if their go-around rates appear significantly different from each other using the two proportion Z test. The statistical analysis indicates that wind gust (>29 mph) and thunderstorm significantly increase the probability of a go-around. However, visibility does not show a significant impact.