Where Birds Don't Fly

During the 109 complete months from August 2016 through August 2025, the combined dataset records 1,269 commercial aviation accidents in Canada and the United States. Of these, 625 occurred in Canada and 644 occurred in the United States. This represents a remarkably even geographical distribution: approximately 49.3 percent occurred in Canada and 50.7 percent in the United States. The combined average was approximately 11.6 commercial accidents per month. These figures should not be interpreted as accident rates because the workbook does not contain exposure data such as departures, flight hours, passenger miles, aircraft movements, or commercial fleet utilization. They measure occurrence frequency only. Commercial aviation represented approximately 9.8 percent of the 12,965 total aviation accidents recorded across the combined dataset during these 109 months. General aviation therefore accounts for the substantially larger portion of accident frequency. However, commercial aviation r...

Some time ago, a comprehensive series of Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) was developed for an airport in response to findings identified by Transport Canada during a regulatory oversight activity. Each corrective action plan was prepared using the principles of the aviation Safety Management System (SMS), conforming to Advisory Circulars, with the objective of addressing the root causes of every finding, strengthening regulatory compliance, and establishing sustainable processes that support continuous safety improvement. Rather than treating the findings as isolated deficiencies, each CAP examined the underlying human factors, organizational factors, supervision factors and environmental factors that contributed to the observation. Every finding was individually analyzed, documented, and linked to specific corrective actions, assigned responsibilities, implementation timelines, verification methods, and long-term monitoring activities. This systematic approach ensured that corrective a...

The Canadian Safety Management System (SMS) is designed to continuously improve aviation safety by identifying hazards, managing risk, monitoring performance, and learning from operational experience. Among the six SMS components, Training and Quality Assurance perform complementary but distinctly different functions. Although they are often discussed together, they serve different purposes within an effective safety management system. Training provides individuals with the knowledge, skills, and procedures required to perform their duties safely, while Quality Assurance determines whether those duties are being performed effectively and whether improvements are required. In practical terms, training prepares people to do the job, while Quality Assurance enables both individuals and organizations to learn how to do the job better. Training is a planned and structured activity. It introduces personnel to regulations, company policies, operating procedures, hazard reporting systems, emer...

 INSTANT GRATIFICATION AND QUALITY CONTROL A strong leader is often viewed as a leader who speaks loudly, makes decisions on the fly, and say they solved the problem by disciplining employees when things go wrong. Investors trust someone who seem powerful. A leader who admits that their safety system did not work and say it will take 6-9 months to repair the issue, lose credibility with investors and the flying public. Who would you book a flight with? An airline stating they disciplined the employee who was the problem, and there are no other problems, or an airline admitting to a system failure leading up to the event, but they are flying as normal during this time of repair, and they should be fully operational in 6-9 months. Educated guess that the airline who fires pilot is more successful. At least it was for a private Air ambulance service supplier. QC QA REVIEW Quality Control (QC) Circles – Doing The Right Things Quality Control circles are small groups of employees who re...

Within the framework of the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CAR) Safety Management System (SMS), Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) perform complementary but distinctly different functions. Both are essential to maintaining aviation safety, yet they operate with different objectives, methods, leadership approaches, and behavioral expectations. QUALITY CONTROL Quality Control is primarily concerned with verifying that work has been completed correctly according to established standards, regulations, procedures, and operational requirements. It focuses on identifying defects, correcting non-conformances, and restoring compliance before unsafe conditions result in incidents or accidents. QUALITY ASSURANCE Quality Assurance, by contrast, evaluates whether the entire management system consistently produces safe outcomes, identifies trends, verifies the effectiveness of policies and risk controls, and continually improves organizational performance. Under the CAR SMS, these two e...

In 2026, the United States celebrates an extraordinary milestone—250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. This anniversary is more than a celebration of history. It is a recognition of the resilience, determination, innovation, and courage that have shaped the nation across two and a half centuries. For 250 years, Americans have faced challenges that tested the strength of the nation. From the earliest days of independence, through periods of expansion, industrial growth, economic hardship, social change, and global conflict, the people of the United States repeatedly demonstrated the ability to adapt, learn, and move forward. The story of America is not simply a story of success; it is a story of continuous improvement through perseverance and learning. One of the greatest examples of this resilience can be found in aviation. When the First Powered Flight took place in 1903, few could have imagined the world that would emerge from that historic achieveme...

The flying public, stakeholders and the regulator have a perception of an SMS enterprise and their safety management system (SMS). While perception may be real and essential aspect of human experience, it is also complex, subjective, and sometimes fallible, the effect perception has on SMS enterprises and their performance are real.  Perception plays a crucial role in performance across various domains and influences performance. Whether it is airport operations, airline operations, sports, academics, business, or any other area requiring high levels of achievement, perception is an integrated part of their performance system. Perception shapes how individuals perceive their goals and the potential rewards of achieving them. Those who perceive their goals as challenging yet attainable are more likely to be motivated to excel. They perceive success as achievable, driving them to work harder and persist in the face of setbacks. Perception of one's abilities, known as self-efficacy, p...

Conformity refers to the act of adjusting one's thoughts, behaviors, or actions to align with the norms, values, or expectations of a group or society.  It involves yielding to social pressure or influence, often without necessarily agreeing with the group's perspective or beliefs.  Conformity can occur in various contexts, such as social settings, organizations, institutions, cultures and among SMS enterprises compliance with auditors or cloudbased SMS suppliers. There are several reasons why people and aviation executives conform. Normative conformity: This occurs when individuals conform to fit in with the group and avoid rejection or disapproval. It is driven by the desire for acceptance of SMS programs, aviation industry norms, and the fear of being excluded from contracts or business opportunities. Informational conformity: Accountable Executives may conform because they believe that the group possesses more accurate information or knowledge than they do.  In such c...