When Hazard Reports Become Unimportant.

When Hazard Reports Become Unimportant.

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

When a hazard report is received the contributor is issued a confirmation of report received. Following an acknowledgement to contributor, the hazard is either entered in a hazard register for trending and then submitted to appropriate manager for further investigation and analysis, or just entered into the hazard register for trending.  Some hazards are investigated with a timeline for CAPs, while other hazards are closed after entry in the hazard register.

After submitting a hazard report, the contributor may receive a confirmation receipt with the following statement:  "Hazard report received, no investigation required".

The contributor of this hazard may have gone through a lengthy process and effort to accurately identify, describe and submit this report. A reply of "no investigation required" could imply to the contributor that this hazard was not important to the Enterprise. Next time that same hazard is identified there may be a temptation not to submit.

Hazard reports not received is not a statement of fact that that there are less hazards. It is just a statement of fact that hazard reports are not received.

When hazard reports are not submitted, the snag goes unknown.

Bird hazard is a prime example of hazard report not received. Based on bird strike data, birds are struck about 92% of the time. This is an indication that bird sightings are not reported, but rather reported when struck, or avoided by rejected takeoff, overshoot or by an abrupt manoeuvre.

Bird sightings have become an unimportant hazard when not reported until becoming an incident.

The process of reporting bird activity appears not to be in control

In SMS hazard reports is the lifeline and the "heart" of pumping life into the system. Investigation and analysis are the "lungs" of extracting valuable safety information; and QA is the "brain" to process information, document results and implement actions.

When hazard reports become unimportant, the system becomes in a state of information starvation.  The key to success is to make every hazard report important to the contributor.

Your thoughts...... 

BirdsEye59604