Abstract: In order to effectively assess the risk level of general aviation hazards, a novel general aviation hazard assessment model considering the risk attitude of decision-making moderators was proposed. Firstly, the assessment index system of general aviation hazards was constructed based on the hazard source classification approach recommended by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Then, in terms of MAGDM problem represented by linguistic term, the Variable Linguistic Power Average (VLPA) operator was put forward, with which the group assessment information of decision-making moderators' attitude towards risk was obtained. Furthermore, with the risk attitude of decision-making moderators taken into consideration, an approach to determine the weight of decision-making attribute by combining the VLPA operator and distance entropy was elaborated. Finally, the linguistic weighted TOPSIS method was utilized to rank the risk level of general aviation hazards and the results were compared with the traditional Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method. The results show that more attention should be paid to the two major hazards--organizational and communication factors in the process of general aviation operation; the ranking results consistent with FMEA method illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method which, moreover, can better deal with the situation where the product of different risk factors may obtain the same Risk Priority Number (RPN) value.

Key words: multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM), hazards, risk attitude, entropy weight method, technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS)