Being an aviation safety officer is an often unrewarding and challenging job. In many ways, an aviation safety manager is like a professional plate spinner balancing delicate interests and priorities, such as:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
A flight risk assessment tool, commonly known as FRAT, is a very important element of your SMS program.
Every flight has risks and hazards.
Using a FRAT tool helps airline SMS programs evaluate reviews and identify those risks. Based on this FRAT review process, safety programs can develop mitigation strategies.
A FRAT tool contains a list of various questions. Each question has a “risk level” attached to it. Counting up the risk level of each question will provide the total risk assessment score for the flight.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
How much risk are you willing to accept?
This is one of the most critical questions that every aviation service provider needs to answer. The answer will influence every single risk management activity in the operator's aviation safety management system (SMS).
What is your risk appetite? Not surprisingly, our risk of appetite changes based on a variety of factors that require constant monitoring, including:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The Northern Hemisphere is blanketed in winter, which involves, cold, ice, many long nights, and grey days.
For human fatigue that means two things:
Winter fatigue is a real, medically proven problem that affects many people.
Risk in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is a tricky subject. Not only is it treated differently in different organizations, but safety professionals tend to get up in arms in front of differing opinions.
The truth is that “risk” is a terribly nebulous word and concept, with multiple ways to use it. What’s important is NOT that you “know what risk is” so much as you “define what risk means to your organization.”
Here are multiple ways that “risk” is used in the risk management industry,
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
It hardly needs to be said that performing risk analysis in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is absolutely essential. There are many opportunities in the aviation SMS' risk management processes for safety professionals and operational department heads to determine whether the potential consequences of conducting operations in the presence of hazards remain either:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Depending on the context and your educational background, safety risk management in aviation safety management systems (SMS) can mean a couple of different things:
In both instances, the objectives remain the same, which ensures that risks surrounding safe operations are controlled.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Change management in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is an extremely important topic. Formal processes to manage change have become important not just for safety performance, but also for demonstrating to SMS auditors that your company knows how to formally manage change as your operations are exposed to changing environmental conditions.
You can bet that poorly managed or documented change management processes will result in an audit finding. The reason is that change management:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Aviation safety managers have jobs that others may find unrewarding, or difficult for them to witness results. The safety manager may spend years performing routine "safety manager stuff," while others may wonder: "just what do you do around here?"
Managing safety is similar to managing security. The job is often a thankless one. Safety managers don't get the daily slap on the back or hear much rewarding praise. After all, when was the last time you told a safety manager: "Good work today, safety manager. We had no accidents today! Keep up the good work!"
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
In aviation safety management systems (SMS), risk management professionals toss around three common terms:
To avoid confusion, aviation safety professionals need to be clear about the different types of risk management activities and use these terms accordingly.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
These two on-demand videos offer:
