Enhancing Aviation Safety: Expert Insights, Tips, and Updates from SMS-Pro

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.

1. Safety Policy – Defines methods, procedures, and organizational structure
2. Safety Risk Management – Looks at the adequacy of, and determines the need for, risk controls, and identifies new hazards
3. Safety Assurance – Evaluates the effectiveness of implemented strategies
4. Safety Promotion – Aimed at safety training and awareness

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,

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

Success in Aviation Risk Management?

Aviation is inherently risky, but effective risk management within a Safety Management System (SMS) transforms those risks into opportunities for safety and compliance.

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:

Underlying Benefit of Fishbone Diagram in Aviation SMS

Fishbone diagram libraries provide many opportunities and benefits for aviation service providers who decide to adopt fishbone diagrams as a risk management tool in their aviation safety management systems (SMS).