Where Birds Don't Fly

Audit pointers for the safety management system (SMS) are guidelines and considerations that auditors use to conduct a thorough and effective audit of regulatory compliance statements and safety in operations. The specific pointers may vary depending on the nature and scope of the audit, but here are some general audit pointers that are applicable in various audit scenarios. Understand the Business, Safety Management System, and Aviation Industry: An auditor begin their audit by gaining a deep understanding of the audited entity's business operations, SMS and industry as airline or airport. This knowledge is crucial to identifying key risks and areas to focus on during the audit. There are qualifications requirements for an auditor to do financial and tax audits, and the requirement is more than the ability to use a pen and pencil and being able to read and write. However, in the aviation industry, both airports and airlines, these are the only requirements. There are no requiremen...

Goals are to be tied to special cause variations as they are causing occurrences and anticipated, or predictive to appear in future processes. Below is an example of a special cause variation causing an occurrence at an airport, which also can be applied to a predictive special cause variations in future operations.  An airport operator is upgrading their runway markings. Since last time markings were painted, the standard had changed with additional requirements. When marking the runway, the airport operator excluded the turnaround bay marking. This non-compliance was discovered during a regulatory inspection of the airport. The airport operator had operated in noncompliance with the standard for a year or more without noticing the non-compliance.   The special cause variation for this noncompliance, or the root cause is ignorance. When analysing human factors, organizational factors, supervision factors, and environmental factors as a primary factor allowing the special...