Where Birds Don't Fly

For a moment, read this blog and forget about safety and think cash revenue of a successful business. Complete safety are intangible and unreachable goals. Safety goals may be set and aimed for, but in the end there will be other safety goals to reach beyond the newly established goals. Think about it for a second. How does an organization measure safety? Is it measured as passed records, or as future avoidable accidents? Passed history is not a guarantee for future events and future avoidable accidents do not exist. Safety is not black and white without changes, but is the range of the color spectrum in a changing world. Definition of safety is generally accepted as: ” the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury." How is it then possible to protect someone from danger, risk or injury when the conditions to produce these events are virtual events of future fantasies?   Cash is what keeps an airline flying and a tool to manage risks. Statistic...

Technical regulations are static requirements of operations while process regulations are operational safety management. During the Pre-SMS days, when technical regulatory requirements were applied as operational processes, the assumption was that more technical regulations automatically produced a safer operational environment. Regulatory compliance without SMS is like a bias selection of a still picture. A car has a breaking system, a steering system, an acceleration system, a power system, a torque system, a display system and several other systems. When it comes off the assembly plant it is regulatory compliant and have met all standards required. A speedometer indicating mph or km/hr, headlights showing white, with correct intensity and alignment, a steering wheel of approved shape and size and operating pedals placed in order as required. A vehicle operator has a license to operate, has passed both a knowledge test and practical test to drive. The road system, consisting of high...