European Advisory Comittee Oct 09 at Koln, Germany

Safety is Local

Why is being local an important aspect of any safety program?

The answer is quite simple: the owner of an asset has the most vested interest in preserving the assets by a safety program. Government and other organizations do have safety programs and they are important to aviation, especially commercial aviation. But the local program has the ability to address every threat to the preservation of assets, even those which might not initially alarm or get the attention of a government program.
Here is an example: Several years ago, the FAA and the City of Sacramento opened a previously closed former military airfield as an additional city airport. The airport was not crowded, but late night noise was an issue for the main airport neighbors. So air express cargo and package airlines were moved to the new field.

But neither the FAA nor the companies were alarmed by the airfield being put into operation without an air traffic control towner, without a crash fire and rescue crew and equipment, and without approach lighting and radar.

The pilot association was alarmed and raised the safety concern locally at the company, the city and the FAA. It was the local concern expressed by the pilot group which led the FAA, the city and the company to install a working tower, crash crew, approach lighting and radar.

Local input in safety programs is critical to safety. The upshot is that the company has suffered no aviation mishaps, in what initially was a high risk operation.

Expensive Investigation? Better Operating Alternatives?

What are the costs now being incurred by Brazil, France, Air France, Airbus and all other parties to the AF447 disaster? Ever thought of that? My estimation is that more than $500 million will be spent in the next 2-3 years in operations related to this mishap.

I wonder what would be the costs for Air France and other airlines of keeping the requested and cleared flight paths for scheduled flights clear of areas of massive convective thunderstorms, by using real time satellite photos, dispatch reroutes and various satellite and HF communications? By the way all of the technology is on board the airplane and in flight control dispatch offices.

Safety Riddle

Safety Riddle: Does the mishap cause the hazard to occur or does the hazard cause the mishap to occur?
According to the FAA, Congress and airline transport associations safety experts, every thing is fine, until every thing is not fine. Read this case below:

Crash Puts Focus on Air Safety-Senate Panel Plans Further Hearings (Washington Post, May 15)

A U.S. Senate committee is planning to hold a series of hearings next month looking into the safety practices of commercial airlines, following revelations of a number of safety lapses from the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407.

The announcement came on the final day of public hearings by the NTSB into the Feb. 12 crash near, which killed 50 people. The crash was the first fatal commercial aviation accident in two years and has been described by the NTSB as the worst transportation accident in seven years.

In an interview yesterday, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees aviation, said he was "stunned by what I've seen and heard on the evidence" from the safety board hearings.

"There are issues of training, crew rest, exam failures, acquaintance with icing," Dorgan said.

"There are so many things that are troublesome. It calls for a real serious investigation."

Dorgan said he met yesterday with families of victims of Flight 3407. He said his committee's hearings will examine the safety practices of the regional airline industry, which has grown as major airlines contract out service to smaller cities. Colgan Air, which is the Manassas-based unit of Pinnacle Airlines, was operating the Buffalo flight as a regional partner of Continental Airlines. The hearing will also focus on the development of safety standards for the airlines by the Federal Aviation Administration. "We've had a remarkably good record [in aviation safety]," Dorgan said. "But it's my understanding that those commercial airline crashes in recent years have overwhelmingly been commuter carriers.

My question is this. Didn't the safety hazard issues exist before the crash occurred? Why is Congress, FAA and other safety experts looking at these issues after the crash occurred? Why didn't they look at them before the crash occurred?
Do they believe that the crash caused the hazards to occur? Is that why they are looking at them now? But in contrast, wouldn't the average person believe that the hazards were there all along, waiting for a challenging situation to bring them out? Any pilot can fly on a fair day. But does it not take a well trained pilot to fly on a dark and stormy night?

Would you agree that the hazard occurred before the mishap and in fact was directly related to the cause of the mishap?

So what is Congress doing? Here is the answer. Congress are lawyers. In tort law, you have to have an offense before you can go to court. You have hearings also before you go to court, to determine if a court proceeding is justified. So these hearing and the Congressional action is related to finding blame for the damage done. That is why the hearings are taking place after the mishap occurred, That is what lawyers do. They take injured parties to court and try to get recompense from the parties that injured them. That is what is going on here.

This is not safety.It is too late to practice safety when the mishap has already occurred. This is just tort law proceedings under the guise of Congressional hearings. The goal may be legislation, but to do what: To make the FAA live up to their own policy of "ONE LEVEL OF SAFETY"?

A Continuing Conversation

How can aviation safety be viewed as a continuing conversation, and not just get media attention after a crash or near miss?
Leeanna Pletcher

Challenges

Well Paul, a worthy initiative for sure. At least you got me curious, particularly about how we aregoing to get to a useful forecast. And also about how we will get investments in effort (andperhaps even money) going in anticipation of future threats. (This is a bit of an achilles-heel for initiatives such as FAST as well). This would seem to me to be some of the challenges here. And as challenges make life interesting, this is not a bad thing. Do you have some ideas already ?

Michel Piers
NLR Netherlands

Safety Forecasting???

Every field prepares and presents regular forecasts. The most common example of course is the daily weather forecast. We can make an activity plan for our day based on the weather forecast. But other f0recasts are equally important to us. Who doesn't listen to the sports forecast for the baseball or football season? Who doesn't listen to the financial forecasts, especially in these times? Production forecasts, crop forecasts, marketing forecasts, political forecasts-well the list goes on and on.

We all listen to forecasts to determine a plan of action.

But how about safety? How does we make a plan of action for safety activities? Do we make a plan of action? Or do we just re-act to circumstances? Are we the "tail being wagged by the dog" in most cases, when it comes to safety?

This blog is dedicated to safety professionals, managers who have to make a plan to keep their organizations running smoothly without losses due to injury and material damage.

I hope that we can share our ideas and make our organizations safer each day through forecasting and planning. Welcome aboard!!

Safety Forecasting and Planning

Safety Managers need an annual safety plan. How else can a safety manager stay ahead of problems affecting operational safety? But a plan must have its basis in a forecast of things to come. But how can a safety manager forecast safety problems if they have not occurred? This is the purpose of this blog. This blog will recommend methods for creating an annual safety forecast and from this basis, the safety manager will have a way to create an annual safety plan.

One of the best ways to maintain a mishap free operation is to maintain a vigorous safety forecast and a robust annual safety plan. The work put into the forecast and plan will be enormous. But the work put into mishap investigations is staggering, often fruitless and always time late.
So join the discussion with me as we share ways to create your own safety forecast and from it, your own safety plan. Paul Miller

Plans

A Plan looks both backward in time and forward in time. A Safety Plan looks backward at what has happened and what is currently happening. Then it looks forward in time at what probably will happen. The element of probability often is a calculation with some difficulty. But from a simple point of view, examples can help. If I stand in traffic in a busy highway, would it be probable to be hit by a car or truck? Most of us would say yes, highways have high traffic occurrence. The probability is high.
On the other hand if we stand in a quiet side street, would we be hit? Slower, less frequent and more courteous traffic might lead us to say only maybe or even no. Lets change the problem to a fit and aware athlete. Would that change your conclusion? What about a small child or an elderly person with impaired vision?
Each factor changes the problem. In like manner, each facet of your operation might change the nature of your planning. For example how important is training? Can a well trained flight crew handle more difficult situations successfully? Is better maintained equipment a factor? Is technology important?
A plan must be a plan for success, one which guarantees success, one which enhances your chances of success to the highest level possible.