Where Birds Don't Fly

The Safety Management System was sold as a system to the aviation industry that would prevent accidents and act as a profit generator. In addition, with an effective SMS there would be, without doubt, an increase in the Return on Investment. So, when this didn’t happen, and all what SMS did was to generate an additional bureaucratic burden, higher operations expenses and the industry still experienced fatal accidents, operators and inspectors chose to reject SMS rather than learn what SMS actually is. SMS had lost its trust as a trustworthy safety system and as a contributor for a greater ROI. When trust is lost it is almost impossible to recover. SMS is in an uphill battle to regain its trust with operators and the regulatory oversight community. Accountability works and must be trusted. By the simple task of implementing SMS and by that alone, the elimination of accidents, aviation managers were expecting substantial SMS bonuses. However, bonuses were not handed out and the financial...

Malfunctioning processes has an impact on safety is a fact known throughout the aviation industry. Any undesired processes within a technical system are known to drastically impact safety. Rarely is the SHELL model checked for malfunctioning processes. In the interest of safety and to predict the effect of a hazard the aviation industry is implementing the SMS system as an additional layer of safety. There are several considerations and interaction in the SHELL model to analyze the effect these interactions have on aviation safety. Knowledge becomes critical in analyzing these interactions. Accountability is the platform of SMS and a crucial element when applying human factors. SMS is a wonderful system when applied correctly to make corrections to mistakes, both what’s consider minor mistakes and major mistakes. In the interest of public safety, there is no alternative to safety. New approaches to safety, including SMS, are required to catch up to the increased demand for safety in ai...