ELOMINA, RUTHNICOLE M. ASSIGNMENT NO.

BSAET 4-2 SAFETY STANDARD AND PRACTICES

1. What is Safety Management System (SMS)?

A safety management system (SMS) is a systematic approach to managing safety, including the
necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures.

The objective of a Safety Management System is to provide a structured management approach

to control safety risks in operations. Effective safety management must take into account the
organization’s specific structures and processes related to safety of operations.

Use of SMS can be generally interpreted as applying a quality management approach to control
safety risks. Similar to other management functions, safety management requires planning,
organizing, communicating and providing direction.

The SMS development begins with setting the organizational safety policy. It defines the generic
principles upon which the SMS is built and operated. This first step outlines the strategy for
achieving acceptable levels of safety within the organization.

Safety planning and the implementation of safety management procedures are the next key
steps in the processes designed to mitigate and contain risk in operations. Once these controls
are ready, quality management techniques can be utilized to ensure that they achieve the
intended objectives and, where they fail, to improve them. This is accomplished by deployment
of safety assurance and evaluation processes which in turn provide for a continuous monitoring
of operations and for identifying areas of safety improvement.

Put simply, effective safety management systems use risk and quality management methods to
achieve their safety goals. In addition, SMS also provides the organizational framework to
establish and foster the development of a positive corporate safety culture.

The implementation of an SMS gives the organization’s management a structured set of tools to
meet their responsibilities for safety defined by the regulator.

2. What is Safety Risk Management (SRM)?

Safety Risk Management ensures that the risks associated with hazards to flight operations are
systematically and formally identified, assessed, and managed within acceptable safety levels.

The complete elimination of risk in aviation operations obviously is an unachievable and

impractical goal (being perfectly safe would require stopping all aviation activities and to
grounding all aircraft) as not all risks can be removed and not all possible risk mitigation
 measures are economically practical. In other words, it is accepted that there will be some
residual risk of harm to people, property or environment, but this is considered to be acceptable
or tolerable by the responsible authority and the society.

Risk management, being a central component of the SMS, plays vital role in addressing the risk
in practical terms. It requires a coherent and consistent process of objective analysis, in
particular for evaluating the operational risks. In general, Risk Management is a structured
approach and systematic actions aimed to achieve the balance between the identified and
assessed risk and practicable risk mitigation.

3. What are Aviation Hazards and Risks?

Defining hazards:
Recognizing hazards is critical to beginning the risk management process. Sometimes, one
should look past the immediate condition and project the progression of the condition. This
ability to project the condition into the future comes from experience, training, and observation.
1. A nick in the propeller blade is a hazard because it can lead to a fatigue crack, resulting in the
loss of the propeller outboard of that point. With enough loss, the vibration could be great
enough to break the engine mounts and allow the engine to separate from the aircraft.
2. Improper refueling of an aircraft is a hazard because improperly bonding and/or grounding
the aircraft creates static electricity that can spark a fire in the refueling vapors. Improper
refueling could also mean fueling a gasoline fuel system with turbine fuel. Both of these
examples show how a simple process can become expensive at best and deadly at worst.
3. Pilot fatigue is a hazard because the pilot may not realize he or she is too tired to fly until
serious errors are made. Humans are very poor monitors of their own mental condition and
level of fatigue. Fatigue can be as debilitating as drug usage, according to some studies.
4. Use of unapproved hardware on aircraft poses problems because aviation hardware is tested
prior to its use on an aircraft for such general properties as hardness, brittleness, malleability,
ductility, elasticity, toughness, density, fusibility, conductivity, and contraction and expansion.

Defining Risk:

Risk is the future impact of a hazard that is not controlled or eliminated. It can be viewed as
future uncertainty created by the hazard. If it involves skill sets, the same situation may yield
different risk.
1. If the nick is not properly evaluated, the potential for propeller failure is unknown.
2. If the aircraft is not properly bonded and grounded, there is a build-up of static electricity that
can and will seek the path of least resistance to ground. If the static discharge ignites the fuel
vapor, an explosion may be imminent.
3. A fatigued pilot is not able to perform at a level commensurate with the mission
requirements.
4. The owner of a homebuilt aircraft decides to use bolts from a local hardware store that cost
less than the recommended hardware, but look the same and appear to be a perfect match, to
attach and secure the aircraft wings. The potential for the wings to detach during flight is
unknown.