Where Birds Don't Fly

Exposure in the Safety Management System is an integrated part of a risk assessment and risk analysis. A risk assessment involves several steps and forms the backbone of an overall risk oversight plan. Included in a risk assessment is one or several risk analyses to determine the defining characteristics of each hazard and to assign risk level scores based on the analysis. Key components of a risk analysis are likelihood, severity and exposure. Likelihood is a definition of times between intervals of an active hazard, severity is a defined outcome of the occurrence, and exposure is the variable, defined as common cause variation or special cause variation and a assigned a function, or weight score, between 0 to 1. If the exposure is zero, the hazard does not exist or has been eliminated. When the exposure is one, the impact of a hazard is inevitable.  When common cause variations are treated as special cause variations, the risk analysis has taken the wrong turn at the fork in the ...

An airport operator has several responsibilities when it comes to the activation of an airport emergency plan, activities during the emergency and post emergency activities. Airport Emergency Plan compliance is a comprehensive task which at first glance seems impossible to comprehend and achieve.  Airport emergency planning is the process of preparing an airport to cope with an emergency occurring at the airport or in its vicinity. The object of the airport emergency planning is to minimize the effects of an emergency, particularly in respect of saving lives and maintaining aircraft operations. The airport emergency plan sets forth the procedures for coordinating the response of different airport agencies and other community agencies in the surrounding community that could be of assistance in responding to the emergency. The basic needs and concepts of emergency planning and exercises are command, communicate and coordinate. An airport operator has a responsibility to identify orga...

The regulations require that an airport or airline operator implement a safety data system, by either electronic or other means, to monitor and analyze trends in hazards, incidents and accidents. Regulations are scalable and paper format as other means is included to monitor and analyze trends. At some of the smaller airports with only one or two persons managing and maintaining the airport the paper format may work for that size and complexity. For airports with three or more workers or larger airports and airlines, it becomes a humongous and labor-intensive task to conform to regulatory compliance by monitoring and analyzing trends using paper documents.  The Safety Management System (SMS) is more than data point entries and designing graphs. SMS needs to be built up by a safety data system with tangible actions and results. A safety data system must be autonomous, preserve its integrity, it must be flexible and scalable to size and complexity, or tailored to operational needs. I...