Where Birds Don't Fly

When things go wrong as they sometimes will, everyone scrambles to cover tracks and project blame on someone, or something else. We are not necessary just talking accidents, but also anything from regulatory violations, hazards, or incidents. When tings go wrong we feel embarrassed and inadequate, in addition to worrying about enforcement actions. Things don’t look good for an individual, or an organization when things go wrong. This is a virtual story about an airport in the middle of nowhere and some busy airlines. At some point there is an incident with lights, but everyone over many years ignored it. Our virtual operators are Somewhere Airport, Across Ocean Flights, Windy Aviation and Elk Regional Airlines. Somewhere Airport is an airport certified for day operations only, with these three airlines offering several daily passengers scheduled flights and on-demand flights. After a few years, Somewhere Airport installed some home-made runway edge lights which did not meet lighting re...

Another year since last deliveries and Santa is running in circles to get the job done for gift deliveries this year. The year has been extremely busy and Santa had to hire more helpers than ever before. The reindeer are getting prepared, the sleigh updated with latest navigational gadgets and Santa’s suit is getting improved for chimney-dynamics, sot control and installed with high-tech thermostats. A few weeks ago Santa reviewed reports from last year’s trip. There were several reports filed, both anonymous and other by Rudolph and Randolph. There were incidents running into an elephant in Nepal, near miss with Himalayan Sasquatch at an undisclosed location, dropping a gift in the wrong kangaroo pocket in Perth, overrunning penguins on Queen Maud’s land, injuring a llama in Peru, getting severely stuck in a chimney in Muskogee and being slammed by a hockey puck on Ellesmere Island. In addition, Santa had several hazard reports from landings, take-offs, approaches and rooftop slide-of...

As the Accountable Executive I am committed to enforce accountability compliance to ensure that everyone is accountable to safety. Your roles and responsibilities are described in the handbook, which was handed out at the beginning of the year. The handbook explicitly states conditions under which lack of accountability is enforceable, e.g. illegal activity, negligence or willful misconduct. In addition, all of you employees signed that you had read and understood everything in the handbook. I will enforce lack of accountability under the authorities of illegal activity, negligence or willful misconduct. Wouldn't it be great if accountability to safety only would be ensured by the hard hand of enforcement? One would assume that life is good, that there are no hazards, incidents or accidents and everyone show up accountable and happy at work or in school in organizations with these types of leadership. There are organizations that operate this way and these organizations are frequen...