Where Birds Don't Fly

One could define risk management as the identification, analysis and elimination of those hazards, as well as the residual risks that threaten the viability of an enterprise. The discussion if it is possible or practical to eliminate hazards are ongoing with opposing views. Airports and airlines accept the inherent risks in aviation every time there is a movement on the field or in aeronavigation. On the other hand, both regulators and professional auditors, expects from the corrective action plans that an operator make changes to ensure that an occurrence will never happen again. While it is unreasonable to expect the complete elimination of risk in aviation, it is also unreasonable to expect that that all risks are acceptable. It is a fine line to balance between what risks to eliminate, and what risk to accept. Risk acceptance, or elimination is a 3D identification process measured in time (speed), space (location), and compass (direction). When 3D thinking is introduced, a future s...

Within an aviation safety management system, a root analysis should be conducted of special cause variations which caused an incident. The two types of variations are the common cause variations and special cause variations. A common cause variation exists within the system itself as an inherent risk and is to be mitigated by applying a risk analysis of a probability exposure level upon arrival at location, direction, or time. Bird migration and seasonal airframe icing are examples of common cause variations. Special cause variations do not exist within the process itself but are interruptions to a process by external forces. Birds or wildlife on the runway, or icy runway are special cause variations, since they are beyond airport certification requirements, and the airport operator is expected to maintain a bird and wildlife free runway environment and a contamination free movement area. However, for an airport operator both bird and wildlife and ice contamination are common cause var...