Where Birds Don't Fly

An SMS enterprise conducts has established regular self evaluation processes of its safety management system (SMS). The most effective self evaluation method is to link daily operational processes to regulatory requirements, standards, and their SMS policy in a daily quality control system. A governing principle of a successful SMS is to collect operational data, e.g. daily, hourly or by tasks, depending on size and complexity, for process analysis. Evaluating a safety management system is ongoing self-evaluation of the entire system. Airline operators are using this process in their Flight Data Monitoring system (FDM), where flight operational parameters are monitored, and data collected for selected parameters.  Airport operators are lacking in this process since there are no regulatory requirements for a monitoring system. Airports rejected the voluntary Daily Rundown system, which is an operational Airside Data Monitoring System and is similar to airlines FDM system, due to lac...

A safety management system (SMS) enterprise is required to appoint an accountable executive (AE) who is the key decisionmaker and authority, and who is responsible for operations or activities authorized under the certificate and accountable on their behalf of the certificate holder for meeting the regulatory requirements. A condition for accepting the position as an AE is that they have control of the financial and human resources that are necessary for the activities and operations authorized under the certificate.  The responsibility and accountability of the accountable executive appointed are not affected by the existence of a person responsible for the maintenance control system, a person responsible for maintenance, or a maintenance manager, or the operations manager. A safety management system is a process and project management system, where the most desired outcome is the objective. This does not only include safety, but also financial outcome. The accountable executive i...