A novel q-ROHFS prospect theory based MABAC method for failure mode risk prioritization in aircraft landing systems

Failure mode risk prioritization is crucial in aircraft landing systems, where undetected or misjudged failures can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Effective risk analysis enables proactive maintenance and enhances aviation safety in such critical phases of flight. In this study, a novel hybrid decision-making framework is proposed to prioritize failure modes in aircraft landing systems by integrating the Multi-Attributive Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC) method with Prospect Theory under a q-Rung Orthopair Hesitant Fuzzy Set (q-ROHFS) environment. Traditional failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) approaches often suffer from rigid weighting schemes, lack of sensitivity to expert hesitancy, and an inability to incorporate psychological factors such as risk aversion or subjective evaluations—especially in high-risk domains like aviation. To address these limitations, the proposed model incorporates human psychological behaviour and uncertainty in expert assessments. Prospect Theory is employed to capture decision makers’ risk attitudes and reference-dependent evaluations, while q-ROHFSs allow more flexible and comprehensive representation of hesitant and uncertain information. In this approach, Best-Worst Method (BWM) is used to determine the relative importance of risk factors for each decision maker, and their individual weights are obtained using TOPSIS-based similarity measures. A novel generalized q-ROHF Minkowski distance measure is also introduced and implemented to determine the weights of decision makers in the TOPSIS method, as well as to construct the prospect decision matrix and the distance matrix in the MABAC method, thereby enhancing computational precision. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated through a real-world case study on aircraft landing systems, and a sensitivity analysis is conducted to validate the robustness of the results. The findings highlight the method’s capability to reflect expert preferences more realistically and improve risk prioritization decisions in complex safety-critical systems.