Sofema Aviation Service www.sassofia.com looks at SMS reporting from the EASA perspective

What do we mean by Safety Occurrence Reporting?

We use the term Safety Occurrence to identify as a collective term which is used to embrace all events which have, or could have significance in the context of aviation safety.

Events identified may in fact range from minor events which are deemed to have a potential for an impact on safety through to incidents or events that should be reported to more serious events including serious incidents and accidents.

Building a Reporting Culture

The willingness to report, safety related exposures is a significant measure when we are considering the effectiveness of Safety Management System.

In the context of Aviation Safety Management Systems (SMS) we usually talk about Safety Culture as being an integral part of the SMS process, but do we have a shared understanding of what we mean when we talk about Safety Culture.

Essentially it is how we feel personally about the risk faced regarding a particular hazard (although we do not view it in these terms) – think about it next time you jump an amber traffic light!

This personal behaviour is impacted by various external influencers for example – our national psyche, family values, work place norms, peer pressure etc.