Monte Carlo Analysis: An Application to Aircraft Design and Crash

Abstract

The current study investigates the application of statistical methods to flight, which have been used in science over time to understand complex physical and mathematical systems by using randomly generated numbers as input into those systems to generate a range of solutions and, specifically, how mathematics is used to examine airplane design and crash frequency. In order to make very accurate predictions, one also requires an appropriate mathematical model. Using randomly selected numbers, the Monte Carlo statistical method is able to make very accurate predictions. With the Monte Carlo statistical method, by using significantly larger numbers of trials, the likelihood of the solutions can be determined very accurately. Currently, Monte Carlo methods are widely used and play a key part in various fields of science. Monte Carlo methods have vast uses in trials with limited observations that cannot be replicated many times. This paper adds new findings to the knowledge base on causes of crashes by airplane design. First, mathematical methods are used in this paper to investigate what the most likely casualty number and range are in the five years after the first flight based on 5000 simulations. Second, an investigation is performed to determine if certain casualty numbers are outliers of certain airplane designs based on the number of casualties reported using Monte Carlo analysis.

Keywords

• Monte Carlo methods
• flight
• casualties