Risk management lessons for your aviation SMS program don’t just have to be learned
Safety management lessons exist everywhere if you are looking out for them.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The basic fact is that truly judging the effectiveness of aviation safety management systems (SMS) is tough.
To merely judge the effectiveness of a program based on how well it meets compliance sounds prescriptive at best.
Judging a program based on a number of incidents and other such numeric data is terribly inadequate. It doesn’t take into account so many other factors that can reveal an SMS' health, such as:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Congratulations! You’ve completed your Line Operations Safety Audit (LOSA). You are ready to strategize and reap the benefits of your proactive LOSA strategy.
Now, one of the final steps in the LOSA process is setting up targets for enhancement based on the rich data you’ve collected. Within the LOSA data, you will undoubtedly uncover trends and issues that you were blinded to (which is one of the primary benefits of LOSA). With these identified trends and issues, you will be able to set your safety targets (i.e., targets for improvement).
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The United States' National Airspace System (NAS) handled between 54 million and 56 million takeoffs and landings in calendar year 2024 (January 1 to December 31). Handling such air traffic volume safely is in the interest of everyone, even for those who do not fly.
Aviation safety refers to measures, practices, and systems designed to minimize risks and prevent harm in air travel and aircraft operations. Aviation safety considers all types of flights, including:
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
Dedicated, hard-working safety managers drive the setup of airline and airports' aviation safety management systems (SMS).
These safety managers are often left to decipher ambiguous requirements that are open to multiple interpretations. This comes into play, especially when upper management wants to "pencil-whip" an aviation SMS and merely check the boxes.
Topics: Aviation SMS Implementation, 1-Safety Policy, 2-Safety Risk Management
The more people involved in the aviation field take advantage of these aviation safety programs, the safer the industry is likely to be.
Encouraging participation in these programs can be as simple as word of mouth referrals or posting program information on bulletin boards at the local fixed base operator (FBO).
However, safety promotion efforts alone are seldom enough to motivate employees to actively involve themselves in a safety program.
Topics: 4-Safety Promotion
The actions taken within the first 5 minutes of an emergency can largely dictate the severity of consequences. In this case, “severity of consequences” can involve catastrophic financial, environmental or material damage, and/or major loss of life.
Employees need a plan of action to count on when emergencies strike in order to minimize damages.
An emergency response plan is a manual that companies use to address many different types of emergencies.
Topics: Quality-Safety Management
An emergency response plan is a manual that companies use to address many different types of emergencies.
The manuals include:
The priorities for any ERP are, in this order:
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
A corrective action is a risk management process, tool or activity used to correct any undesirable element of an aviation service provider's operational system. Most commonly, the term "corrective action" is used loosely to represent "corrective actions and preventative actions," or CPAs. You may also see corrective actions called CAPAs (corrective action preventative action) or RCAs (recommended corrective actions), though CPA is the most recognized acronym globally in the aviation industry.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
As I’ve discussed before, “safety culture” gets thrown around rather loosely in the aviation industry.
"Safety culture" is the kind of thing that is vitally important, but so undernourished in terms of actually discussing what it means and what it looks like,
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
These two on-demand videos offer:
