Aviation safety and accident survivability: Where is the need for aviation rescue fire fighting services greatest?

Aircraft accidents are most likely to occur on or within the immediate vicinity of an aerodrome, however, only some aerodromes have a specialised onsite fire and rescue service (Aviation Rescue Fire Fighting Service or ARFFS). ARFFS exist to save life in the event of an aircraft accident, yet there is limited literature about assessing the need for ARFFS. This presents considerable challenges for aviation safety standard setting organisations and has resulted in global inconsistency and disparity relating to the ARFFS. This paper presents two studies that analyse aviation safety and accident data to start to establish an evidence base for decisions about where ARFFS should be located. The first study found that aerodromes with operations that were primarily general aviation had a higher rate of accidents and serious incidents than aerodromes with operations that were primarily commercial air transport. The second study found that narrow bodied aircraft present a greater probability of a fatal outcome (with or without fire) compared to wide-bodied aircraft. Passenger movement rates and the size of aircraft are the basis for many international ARFFS establishment criteria, but the findings in this paper suggests that alone they are not sufficient indicators of the need for an ARFFS.