Has Aviation Become Safer In Two Years?

Has Aviation Become Safer In Two Years?

NOTE: This post is from one of our frequent contributors to this blog, "Birdseye59604.

Two years ago an aviation-blog about Safety Management System (SMS) as a tool beyond the "Trial and Error Method" was published. Is aviation safer today than two years ago? There are still senior managers and regulators who believe that the only way to manage safety is to make new restrictive safety rules to prohibit, or requirement of certain actions. After each accident news media reports that this must be a "lesson learned" and demands changes to improve safety. Over the last couple of years there has been a demand for better tracking of airplanes in remote areas, and news stories states that "this must never happen again". The trial and error method is still continuing, but is slowly developing into SMS. 

SMS developed from an unplanned aviation

 event which could have been managed.

How many lessons learned are expected before the world turns to SMS to be regulatory mandated in all countries? SMS regulations are performance based where operational control, and how-things-are-done in an organization determine their level of safety. Regulatory requirements is only the level where the bar is set for regulatory compliance. This can simply be explained as the "expectations" to meet the minimum regulatory requirement for a Safety Management System.

When applying each expectation as a goal for SMS operational control an enterprise is completing the first step to establish how regulatory goals are met. Everything else above regulatory requirements are processes for continuous improvements, and how to ensure safety for every flight, every year, month, day, hour, minute and second.

Has aviation become safer in these last two years because of SMS? Yes it has. Initiatives and mandates are proposed and implemented to apply Safety Management System as the preferred operational control tool and moving away from the trial and error method.

However, it has been recognized that safety is a process and does not happen on its own merit, but require planning, implementation, checks and balances, and action for continuous safety improvements. This is only achieved with accountability in a just-culture.  

BirdsEye59604

When Common Sense Rolls Away

When Common Sense Rolls Away

NOTE: This post is from one of our frequent contributors to this blog, "Birdseye59604.

Imagine a car incident where the vehicle ends up through a picket fence and into a yard. The incident may have been caused due to another traffic swirling in the path, or because the black cat crossed in front. Incidents are results of being distracted by outside events, which causes a split-second of distraction from task and with no time to invent a recovery process.

It is common sense to put out the fire, and common sense was applied.

When the events are heated, or literally on fire, unless there are established processes in place it becomes easy to do mistakes, since the processes now has to be invented at the time of reaction.

Assume for a moment that this incident happened on top of a hill and the vehicle caught on fire. Fire trucks arrive and firefighter are running towards the vehicle ready to put out the fire. Then, in a split second, the car begins rolling away and down the street. Still on fire, the fire fighters run behind trying to catch up. But with no luck, and the car crashes into another fence. 

After all the excitement is calmed down and the fire is extinguished,  the next step is to find out what happen, what caused it, what link in the process was lacking, and what is the root cause.

After an incident the event must be made right again. Not just to prevent further similar incidents, or not just as a "lesson learned", but to make it right for what just happened. What makes it right is to find the root cause and make the current event right again with accountability. 

A process in control paints a marvelous picture    

Since there was no process of action established between fire crew arrival and putting out the fire, everything else became common sense.  

BirdsEye59604