Operational Risk Management

Commercial sUAS operations are growing quickly as FAA regulations continue to change.  Part 107 recently released by the FAA will allow for commercial operation of UAS by anyone that takes the aeronautical knowledge test to become certified as a sUAS commercial operator.  Commercial operators include anyone flying their UAS in exchange for money.  Part 107 will be official in August and will no longer require commercial UAS pilots to operate with a private pilot’s license.  This opens the door for a multitude of commercial “drone” businesses and opportunities.  However, each pilot should approach their applied application with a fully defined plan to mitigate any hazards during operation.  The subsections below will give examples of the hazard analysis process for a DJI Phantom 4 used for commercial roof inspection operation.

     

Preliminary Hazard List

     The initial list is used for brainstorming and coming up with potential hazards in various stages of the operation.  The table below shows the staging and flight hazards as an example.  The probability, severity, and Risk level are based on MIL-STD-882D/E (Marshall, Douglas M., Barnhart, Richard K., and Hottman, Stephen B., 2012).  Probability starts with level A at “Frequent” and goes to level E which is considered “Improbable”.  Severity starts with Category I which is catastrophic and ends with level IV which is negligible.  The greater the number or letter, the less of a risk the hazard will present.

       Track one shows power lines as a probable probability and a severity of category III which is marginal.  This means that power lines are somewhat possible in terms of an obstacle to consider during staging.  The severity would be marginal in that this would most likely result in a loss of work days due to damaged equipment but not necessarily bodily injury.

Preliminary Hazard Assessment

     The next step is to analyze the proposed hazards and determine potential mitigating actions.  After providing a mitigation action the RRL or residual risk level is revaluated to determine if the proposed action reduced the original risk.  All actions proposed below did reduce the risks by small increments and most are fairly straight forward for this operation application.  The pilot needs to have a full understanding of the UAS’s capabilities and limitations in all conditions and environments to help reduce potential risk (Marshall, Douglas M., Barnhart, Richard K., and Hottman, Stephen B., 2012). 

Operational Hazard Review and Analysis

     The OHR&A is similar to the previous analysis but focuses on human factors and crew resource management.  In addition the action review column is added which will include the actions that haven’t been mitigated or the newly modified action.  For the DJI P4 example all actions were mitigated appropriately so the tables below will only show new actions that require attention or review related to the human/machine interface and CRM (Marshall, Douglas M., Barnhart, Richard K., and Hottman, Stephen B., 2012). 

Operational Risk Management Assessment Tool

     The final tool is the risk assessment matrix which is used to evaluate common operational hazards in terms of severity and probability (Marshall, Douglas M., Barnhart, Richard K., and Hottman, Stephen B., 2012).  The risk assessment matrix takes the above risks that were developed and gives a summary prior to flight activity.  The tool is used as an aid in the decision-making process.

References

Marshall, Douglas M., Barnhart, Richard K., and Hottman, Stephen B., eds. (2012).   Introduction to Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Baton Rouge, ProQuest ebrary. Web. 18 July 2016.