General Introduction to Aviation Safety Reporting
Safety is defined as “The condition to which risks are managed to acceptable levels.”
Whenever Humans and Machines are involved there will always be potential for accident and incident. Safety management is based on the premise that hazards, risks and threats will always exist.
With a Safety Management System (SMS) we focus on the real possibility of reducing the organisations exposure across a range of business areas – we do this by delivering a systematic approach to risk management.
It is possible to promote transparent processes which establish clear lines of accountability and aid decision-making and to use this as a tool to drive positive change.
When SMS is integrated within a management system which identifies and promotes the positive attributes of a Safety Culture which then builds on a set of enduring values and attitudes regarding safety issues, which to be really effective has to be shared by every member of every level of an organization.
The objective of safety reporting is to contribute to the improvement of air safety by ensuring that all information on safety related events are identified, collected, collated and analyzed, allowing the proactive identification of safety risks and the subsequent targeting of these risks to mitigate any possible undesired outcome.
Without doubt Safety Management System contribute significantly to improvements in the systems and procedures and support the positive development of aviation operations.
However to be highly effective requires that a systemic and proactive management is necessary to identify and control these hazards, risks and threats before they lead to mishaps.
An effective SMS also requires a proactive safety culture which involves all stakeholders including the Regulatory Authority (regulator) as well as industry working together to reduce the likelihood of accidents.
Safety Culture refers to the extent to which every individual and every group of the organization is aware of the risks and unknown hazards induced by its activities; is continuously behaving so as to preserve and enhance safety; is willing and able to adapt itself when facing safety issues; is willing to communicate safety issues; and consistently evaluates safety related behaviour
SMS aims to reduce risks in aviation and seeks to introduce various mitigations which will drive the accident rate downward.
Risk management involves a systematic approach to understanding the various exposures and measuring the magnitude so that it is possible to determine the most appropriate mitigations which are able to address and the uncertainty by identifying, understanding, assessing, monitoring, acting on and communicating risk issues.
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