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

What Is Predictive Risk Management?

In aviation safety management systems (SMS), risk management professionals toss around three common terms:

• reactive risk management;
• proactive risk management; and
• predictive risk management.

What Are We Really Talking About?

In aviation safety management systems (SMS), the best indicator of a highly performant safety culture isn’t one that has reduced operational risk close to zero, but one that readily adapts to and absorbs safety issues and disturbances as they arise.

Aviation SMS Implementations Are Result of Many Small Actions

The process of aviation safety management systems (SMS), simply put, is the conglomeration of many small actions on the part of safety management teams, operational managers and employees.

Actions such as:

The Method of Talking About a Safety Management System

In another post about safety management systems for the layman, I discussed some of the groundwork for what an aviation safety management system (SMS) is and who uses it.

What Is Risk Assessment?

In November 2006, ICAO mandated that all member states implement formal aviation safety management systems (SMS). One objective was to provide aviation service providers with a standardized approach to managing safety.

During the aviation SMS implementation, operators must create and maintain a formal process of risk analysis and risk assessment in order to keep safety performance at an acceptable level of safety (ALoS). This process is “formal” in the sense that this process needs to be documented and reviewed.

Safety Management Systems Not Just for Large Operators

When we think of safety management systems (SMS), it’s easy to think of big operations such as major airlines and large international airports.

General aviation pilots and smaller aviation service providers need their own safety management systems as well,

Aviation Risk Management Skills Always Need Refining

Pilots have to be committed to safety.

At the end of the day, safety is the most important thing in aviation.

Manage Safety Is Managing Risk

Ultimately, managing safety is about managing risk – a core value that can easily be overshadowed in large aviation safety management systems' (SMS) implementations.

What Is Reactive Risk Management

Reactive risk management usually gets a bad rap. It’s often perceived as the “lowest” form of risk management, and those aviation service providers should be moving from reactive risk management towards more “advanced” forms to manage risk.

Common Questions About Aviation LOSA Programs

As a professional that regularly deals with Line Operations Safety Audits (LOSA), there are two questions that I frequently hear;