SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

How to Understand Fatigue in Aviation SMS

Fatigue is a top safety priority. Even moderate levels of fatigue can cause employees to demonstrate the same mental and physical capabilities as an intoxicated person.

Discussing fatigue in aviation safety management systems (SMS) becomes interesting when one considers the onus for managing fatigue is on multiple parties, namely:

• Civil aviation authority for providing regulatory framework and oversight activities to ensure operators manage fatigue based on scientific principles, knowledge, and operational experience;

What Is Trend Analysis in Aviation Safety Management?

It is a common misnomer that trend analysis in risk management is used to forecast future performance. This understanding of trend analysis is both reductive and distorts the purpose of trend analysis in aviation safety management systems (SMS).

All Four Pillars Are Not Created Equal

Aviation safety professionals know that the four pillars of safety management systems are the foundational idea upon which aviation safety management systems (SMS) are based.

FAA’s Safety Risk Management (SRM) Process and Hazard Identification Element

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) SRM compliance requirement for hazard identification controls every U.S. aviation service provider required to implement formal aviation safety management systems (SMS). These SRM requirements indirectly affect these operators' safety culture and risk management processes whether they like it or not.

A Hot Word in Aviation SMS?

As airlines and the aviation industry, in general, continue to eclipse safety records year by year, a nagging question begins to crop up with increasing vigor:

To what end?

What Is SMS Shortfall Analysis?

In every aviation safety management system (SMS), the accountable executive is responsible for ensuring the SMS is properly implemented and working across the entire organization. In order to fulfill this responsibility, accountable executives and their safety teams need tools to identify and address substandard safety performance.

What Is Change Management in Aviation SMS

Since November 2006, most commercial aviation service providers have been required to implement formal aviation safety management systems (SMS) to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) mandate.

Difference Between Risk and Risk Event

Last year we released a Hazard and Risk Competency Quiz, which deals a lot with the concept of Risk Events. Overall the assessment – which was purposefully very difficult – was very successful.

We received a lot of feedback about Risk Events, and for the most part aviation safety managers

Aviation Is Risky Business

Aviation, like any business, has elements of risk.

Whether it is a safety issue or a cost issue, the risk is very much a part of the aviation industry's past, present, and future.

I believe it takes a certain kind of person to be successful in aviation risk management.

Yet what does success look like for an aviation safety professional?

Safety Risk Management Process

If there’s one takeaway for new professionals in aviation safety management, it’s that aviation risk management is a process. It is not a single, solid “thing.”

This process is cyclical and can be identified by several stages that form a systematic approach to safety risk management, including: