Establishing availability of a two-engine aircraft for an ETOPS flight or an ETOPS flight path for a two-engine aircraft

A system for establishing availability of a two-engine aircraft for a predefined Extended Operations (ETOPS) flight, the system comprising:

• an ETOPS in-flight shutdown (IFSD) risk calculator module, executed by a processor module, which when executed is configured to calculate a probability of a dual independent engine shutdown sequence for each of a climb phase, a plurality of cruise phases including an ETOPS phase, and a descent phase into which the predefined ETOPS flight is divisible, the dual independent engine shutdown sequence being composed of a sequence of events that for each phase includes events having respective, conditional probabilities specific to a model of the two-engine aircraft, a product of the conditional probabilities for a phase being the probability of the dual independent engine shutdown sequence for the phase,
• wherein the ETOPS IFSD risk calculator module is also configured to calculate a risk of the dual independent engine shutdown sequence during the predefined ETOPS flight as a function of a sum of the probabilities for the phases;
• and
• a display module configured to establish availability of the two-engine aircraft for the predefined ETOPS flight based on the risk and a preexisting baseline, the predefined ETOPS flight having a flight path that two-engine aircraft will follow in an instance in which the availability of the two-engine aircraft for the predefined ETOPS flight is established,
• wherein the predefined ETOPS flight includes takeoff from an origin airport and touchdown at a destination airport,
• wherein the dual independent engine shutdown sequence is composed of a sequence of events that for each phase includes a third event of an inability of a first engine to restart after shutdown during the predefined ETOPS flight, and after a non-restartable second engine shutdown before touchdown at the destination airport or an alternate airport, and
• wherein the ETOPS IFSD risk calculator module is further configured to calculate the conditional probability of the third event for each phase as the ratio of a non-restartable engine shutdown rate to total engine shutdown rate for the phase.

A storage medium for establishing availability of a two-engine aircraft for a predefined Extended Operations (ETOPS) flight, the storage medium being non-transitory and having computer-readable program code stored therein that, in response to execution by processor, cause a system to at least:

• calculate a probability of a dual independent engine shutdown sequence for each of a climb phase, a plurality of cruise phases including ETOPS phase, and a descent phase into which the predefined ETOPS flight is divisible, the dual independent engine shutdown sequence being composed of a sequence of events that for each phase includes events having respective, conditional probabilities specific to a model of the two-engine aircraft, a product of the conditional probabilities for a phase being the probability of the dual independent engine shutdown sequence for the phase;
• calculate a risk of the dual independent engine shutdown sequence during the predefined ETOPS flight as a function of a sum of the probabilities for the phases;
• and
• establish availability of the two-engine aircraft for the predefined ETOPS flight based on the risk and a preexisting baseline, the predefined ETOPS flight having a flight path that the two-engine aircraft will follow in an instance in which the availability of the two-engine aircraft for the predefined ETOPS flight is established,
• wherein the predefined ETOPS flight includes takeoff from an origin airport and touchdown at a destination airport,
• wherein the dual independent engine shutdown sequence is composed of a sequence of events that for each phase includes a third event of an inability of a first engine to restart after shutdown during the predefined ETOPS flight, and after a non-restartable second engine shutdown before touchdown at the destination airport or an alternate airport, and
• wherein the storage medium has further computer program code stored therein that, in response to execution by the processor, causes the system to further calculate the conditional probability of the third event for each phase as the ratio of a non-restartable engine shutdown rate to total engine shutdown rate for the phase.