Traceable LLM-Generated Hazard Scenarios for Operational Safety Analysis of Aviation Systems Using ASRS Reports

Abstract

Operational hazard analysis of aviation system operations must consider interactions among weather, ATC actions, airspace constraints, aircraft operations, and human factors - distinct from the functional hazard assessment applied at the aircraft-system level. We present an AI-assisted approach that generates candidate hazard scenarios from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS). Given a target adverse outcome, it produces a structured hypothesis as categorical factors and a narrative scenario describing an operational event sequence consistent with the structure. Each scenario includes by a plausibility score from historical co-occurrence evidence and traceability to the most similar held-out ASRS reports. We then propose a hybrid variant, conditioning narrative generation on a structured hypothesis produced via evolutionary abduction, improving correctness and reducing variability. We evaluate multiple large language models, zero-shot versus few-shot prompting, and optional fine-tuning, measuring how prompting and model choice affect the validity and realism of the generated structures and narratives.