SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

What Is an Audit of Previously Managed Issues in Aviation Safety Management

When you perform internal aviation SMS audits, it’s essential you include the auditing of previously managed issues.

Why should you audit previously managed issues? Because external auditors will randomly sample your managed issues and look very closely at the decisions you made and why you made them. If you don’t randomly sample and audit your issues, you can probably expect an audit finding on your next external audit.

Changes Are Delicate

The systems, procedures, and regulations of aviation service providers are as multifaceted as just about any industry in the world. We can imagine it as a house of cards, where all of the various elements lean on each other to form what we know as the aviation industry.

The aviation industry has matured significantly in the past one hundred years since the first scheduled airline flight in 1914. Change is inevitable.

Poor Safety Reporting Cultures Invite Opportunities for Loss

Safety reports from aviation service providers' employees are important resources for the detection and prevention of potential safety hazards. One of the biggest challenges for aviation safety managers is to obtain safety reports from employees.

Obstacles that contribute to this challenge are common:

• Difficult reporting processes;
• No hazard identification training;
• Lack of recurring encouragement;

Safety Policy Is the Architecture of Aviation SMS

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) are supported by the safety policy which is endorsed by the organization's accountable executive. The safety policy communicates management's commitment to the SMS while also affording employees protection from self-reporting errors or mistakes.

How Well Do You Understand Risk Management in Your SMS?

Aviation safety managers are tasked with managing all aspects of fully implemented aviation safety management systems (SMS). Naturally, most laypersons imagine safety managers reacting to accidents, incidents, and irregularities (issues or events) as their primary job function.

It is also probable that most managers outside the safety department

What Are Responsibility, Confidentiality, and Privacy in Aviation Safety Management

In aviation safety management, responsibility, confidentiality, and privacy are the triad that affects how you handle reported safety information. Whether your organization is large or small, your leadership team needs to discuss these factors and decide how to handle them.

Your organization may decide that it doesn’t need to pay particular attention to this triad,

Aviation Safety Software Prioritizes Safety

Most of us have experienced the following: sitting on the runway for over an hour wondering why the plane isn’t moving. The pilot has already apologized and given the “reason” for the delay: the daunting and nebulous “technical difficulties.”

For passengers, this type of situation is frustrating at best, and at worst unnerving, even scary.

Aviation Safety Audits: Here to Stay

Another aviation safety audit for your safety management system (SMS)...

The safety auditors are coming with established guidelines from:

• Clients;
• FAA;
• Transport Canada;
• EASA;

What Is Safety Posture in Aviation SMS

Aviation service providers should be aware of what level of risk is and isn’t acceptable. In other words, when you perform a risk assessment on a safety concern, what amount of risk requires mitigating actions, and what amount of risk requires no actions? What amount of risk is acceptable.

Safety posture in SMS is largely about how you define an acceptable level of safety. Different organizations will tolerate different levels of risk.

What Are the Best Practices for Establishing Safety Accountabilities?

One of the first steps in implementing an aviation safety management system (SMS) is to complete the documentation elements in the Safety Policy and Objectives component of an ICAO compliant SMS.

Please note that I said "one of the first steps." Before tackling these documentation elements, we recommend that you first: