Where Birds Don't Fly

Airports and airlines are required to conduct a triennial audit of the entire quality assurance program, calculated from the initial audit, or a series of audits conducted at intervals set out in their manual. There are two phases to a line-item audit. The first phase is a static regulatory compliance, which includes manuals, documents and records. A regulatory compliance audit is in a static environment, without movements or operational tasks. An example could be the runway surface inspection required by an airport stating that this will be done whenever there are changes to the runway conditions, such as snow, slush or standing water etc. This statement conforms to regulatory requirements. However, the important part is that processes in an operational environment also conforms to regulatory compliance. The second phase is process compliance.  A process defined in the safety management system (SMS) manual, are processes that are consistent with regulatory compliance. An example c...

There are several ways to quit a safety management system (SMS) and an SMS enterprise may unintentionally or unknowingly have quit their SMS. A safety management system is an expensive system, requires hard work and the benefits are unknown, assumed, or abstract benefits.  Benefits, if any, remain unknown since an SMS cannot tell the future, or make predications to what, where, where, why, who and how an incident will occur.  When a justification is presented to an SMS enterprise, a CAO, a CEO, or municipality, that SMS is expensive and without tangible results there is a strong temptation to accept these facts. There is no evidence that the SMS will cause a reduction of future accidents, incidents or hazards, there is no evidence of higher return on investment, and there is no evidence that an SMS has produced better qualified flight crew, maintenance crew or airport personnel. That an enterprise quits SMS does not imply that they abolish their SMS program, but that it is pos...