Safety Uphill Battle

 Safety Uphill Battle

By OffRoadPilots

Conventional wisdom is that safety is to be protected from harm to a person or property, without knowing who the protector is, or how they are protecting a person or property from harm. Safety is a word with indefinite limits in protecting a person or property, and a word that encompasses all virtual events. When the word safety is used in communication its meaning is unlimited, but also restricted by imagination. A person is looking forward to a safe flight, which is to be protected by someone while airborne and deplane without experience harm to their person or to the aircraft. Safety has become a responsibility of someone unknown rather than the person who expects to be safe. Accepting risk is a way of life, and there is an inherent risk in flying, but when it is removed from the equation, safety in aviation becomes an uphill battle.

Safety in aviation, being airlines or airports, is not the absence of accidents or events, but the reliability of their processes, and expected process outputs. A safety management system (SMS) is a businesslike approach to safety. What this entails is that an SMS includes a transaction system, an accounting system and a balance sheet with results. As a businesslike approach to safety an SMS enterprise keeps up a daily quality control system, and closes that system daily. In a business the cash is flowing in, expenses are paid and the leftovers is for anything else. Cash is tangible, while safety is abstract and turns safety into an uphill battle.

When safety in aviation is turned into tangible cash, that is when a safety management system makes sense. It does not make sense to wait for a future accident that would happen without having an SMS, but now it will not happen because of the SMS.

A safety management system is an excellent tool for airlines and airport operators, but they need to know how to use the tool and known what there is to manage. Future accidents cannot be managed, past accidents cannot be managed and abstract, or virtual scenarios established in a risk analysis cannot be managed. Its name is a management system, but we don’t manage risks, we lead personnel, manage equipment and validate operational design for improved performance above the safety risk level bar. Simply said, it takes a leader as the accountable executive to operate with an SMS, it takes a leader who takes an active role in strategic planning, and most important, it takes a leader to accept bad news when performance takes unplanned turns. It is widely expected within the aviation industry, and communicated by the regulator that the safety management systems help companies identify safety risks before they become bigger problems, and that the aviation industry put safety management systems in place as an extra layer of protection to help save lives. Assuming that it is a fact that an SMS save lives, a question to answer should be how this life saving system saves lives, and what its proven track record in life saving is. A regulatory requirement is for an SMS enterprise to operate with a process for setting goals for the improvement of aviation safety and for measuring the attainment of those goals. Since SMS is published by the regulator as “an extra layer of protection to help save lives”, a measurement of the regulatory requirement for “measuring the attainment of those goals” should be measured in how many lives, and specifically what lives were saved. An unspecified goal is not a goal but a wish, and a wish does not have any impact on operations. The moral of the story is that an SMS cannot be a system to save lives since it does not include life-saving processes. A first-aid process is a life-saving process, a surgery is a life- saving process, digging a water well in the desert is a life-saving process, but operating with an SMS is not a life-saving process. The aviation industry has caught on to this misleading definition but are reluctant to oppose the regulators. When the safety-card is played it becomes an uphill battel to work within an SMS system. SMS, as a system in itself is an exceptional system, and the more we learn about SMS, the more intelligent it becomes. However, it was presented and sold to the aviation industry as an excellent system, but when it was delivered it came on the cover of a trash can.

Imagine for a minute that you are at the most beautiful restaurant together with your favorite person. It’s a wonderful atmosphere, the place is spectacular, friendly personnel and everything is a million times better than expected. You are waiting for the meal to be served when you hear the rattling noise of falling trash cans. The next thing you know is that your meal is served on the cover of a trash can. Your meal is also served with a note stating that you must consume this meal to avoid harm. You feel trapped and alone without a place to go and decide to accept the meal, but it is an uphill battle to consume. This is how SMS was presented. It is an excellent system, but it was presented on the cover of a trash can and enforced to be accepted for operators to remain in business.

If the SMS is a system to save lives, another question to answer is if airports and airlines prior to SMS knowingly worked within systems that destroyed lives and properties. When the safety-card is used to promote a cause, airlines and airport operators recognize this as opinions, but they also know that it is not an appropriate response to disagree with safety and obey by default. Opinions are often used to spread ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. Working within a safety management system is an uphill battle for airlines and airports when they must conform to opinion messages and social media ratings.

It is not long ago that an airliner was cleared for takeoff and reach a takeoff speed of 100 KTS when another major airliner crossed the active runway at a short distance in front of the departing airliner. The tower cancelled takeoff clearance and the departing aircraft aborted their takeoff. A collision was avoided and there were no physical injuries. Both airlines were operating with a safety management system, but that did not prevent an incident. The worst aviation accident is still a pre-SMS accident that happened on March 27, 1977. Since SMS saves lives, the logic is also that an SMS would have prevented this disaster. However, if the departing aircraft had continued its takeoff run after their very first power application for takeoff (which was aborted), the question to answer is if a continued takeoff would have prevented the accident. SMS is not the system that saves lives. People is the system that saves lives.

SMS is an exceptional well-designed system, and when used as intended it is a system where there is trust, learning, accountability, and information sharing. These are the four foundations for an SMS to function in a healthy SMS environment.

One of the most important, but also one of the most overlooked requirements for an SMS enterprise is to monitor the concerns of the civil aviation industry in respect of safety and their perceived effect on the holder the certificate. This requirement is also overlooked by the regulator, who does not inspect for compliance, or how social media concerns affect operations.

There is a fine line to balance between obeying social media demands and assessing the facts before an action is initiated. It is a double edge sward since the aviation industry is dependant on high social media ratings, but also is required to make changes, and possible unpopular changes. Target marketing towards perception is crucial to stay in business and fund the safety management system. When cashflow is reduced, the temptation is to eliminate safety measures, since safety is abstract and does not come with past tangible results. Safety results can only be assessed by process outputs and the number of times things go right. That an airline or airport operates without incidents cannot directly be assigned to their safety management system, since aviation was the safest mode of transportation with very few major accidents prior to SMS implementation. A dilemma in safety is to sell safety to organizational management and the general public since the perception is already that flying is safe. Social media solutions are quick to assign pilot error to accidents, but within an SMS enterprise there is no such thing as pilot error, or human error when things go wrong, but there are human factors considerations in process design.

Safety is an uphill battle to sell and accept when operations already is safe. When an airport operator is focusing their SMS on the role of an accountable executive, (AE), to be responsible on behalf of the certificate holder for compliance with regulations, then they are focusing on maintaining a solid foundation for the SMS. When airport operators divert their focus from the AE to airside operations, their processes become operational control compliance, or assumed compliance, or an omission compliance when things go wrong, as opposed to oversight compliance why things went right the first time. When focusing on airside operations itself and making changes, the inevitable trap is overcontrolling of processes.

Safety is an uphill battle for your SMS enterprise when SMS portrays “life as it should be” and not “life as it is” during airline and airport service delivery operations. No matter what they tell you, there is an I in TEAM. Remove the uphill SMS battle by applying your SMS as the intended support tool that it is. Trust that your policies, processes, and procedures all come with built-in flaws. Trust that acceptable work practices have more values to safety in operations than written procedures, and finally, move away from the I in TEAM.

OffRoadPilots