Safety Case
By CatalinaNJB
When
the car runs out of gas on a remote backroad, it’s not the vehicle system that
failed, but the gas supply system. When a vehicle has a flat tire on a busy
highway, it’s not the vehicle system that failed, but the tire system. When an
aircraft excurses a runway, it’s not the aircraft system, or airport system
that failed, but a sub-system of the aircraft or the airport, or any one of
these undesired events could have been caused by the human performance
capability system or the level of comprehension of any of these systems. During
the history or aviation, the aviation industry became safer without the
requirement to conduct safety cases. Building safety cases with the
introduction of new aircraft type, change in route structures, additions to the
movement area or change in key personnel were a part of ongoing changes and
adapting to these changes as they occurred.
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| A safety case will be your most precious friend of aviation SMS |
A safety
case is a forward-looking document produced by an airline or airport of identified
hazards, analyses of the hazards and building a safety case with risks control
strategies. The focus of a safety case is to operate with a plan to reduce the
risk for both regulatory non-compliance and operational incidents. An
Enterprise develops a safety case pursuant to the Safety Management System and not
pursuant to regulatory demands. There is a close relationship between the SMS
and the safety case. The safety case is guidance material for safety activities
while SMS provides processes for these activities. In addition to the
application of current corrective action plans, a safety case is a reference
document for airlines and airports for future system-identical planned changes
or when unexpected changes are experienced.
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| A safety case is a tool to validate findings |
Building
a safety case is a proactive process of the Safety Management System. Since it
is proactive, the intent of building a safety case is not a reactive action to
planned events, but a proactive action to operational sub-systems. The reason
for a safety case is simply to have a documented forward-looking plan for all
systems and apply this plan when there are changes to the system. Building a
safety case is therefore very different than corrective action plans required
from findings. There are no findings involved in building a safety case, but
hazard analysis and risk assessment of operational sub-systems are involved.
A
successful airline operator plans for future introductions of new aircraft and
new routes. A safety case of is simply to analyze and assign the expected probability
risk level at the time of introductions of these new sub-systems. When the time
is right, the airline is prepared for these changes. The same goes for
airports. Airport management knows that sooner or later they must repaint the
runway identification numbers. Even if there is no traffic on the runway to
deteriorate the numbers, the magnetic variation changes over time and requiring
repainting. A safety case as a forward-looking plan is a plan for the movement
area marking system. When the time is right, the airport is prepared to make
changes to the this system.
When
building a safety case, it is vital to the success for acceptable performance
of the system that the person building a safety case comprehend the system
itself. In addition to comprehending the system, the person must comprehend the
interactions of one system with other systems, both externally and within the
operations. A safety case can only be built as a blueprint of a forward-looking
plan.
CatalinaNJB
