SAFETY MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS

Presentation For School of Technical

Training
By
Mtech B Mateka
Aircraft Interiors Department
 The Facilitator
 School Aviation Safety Major
 Aircraft Interiors Instructor
 Skilled Worker Class 1 (Aircraft Trimming and
Safety Equipment)
 National Diploma in Aircraft Engineering (Aircraft
Trimming and Safety Equipment) - STT
 Aviation Safety Certificate – Aviation Training
Academy of Zimbabwe (ATAZ)
 Executive Certificate in Programme and Project
Monitoring and Evaluation – University of
Zimbabwe
 Squad and Ceremonial Drill Instructor
 Course Content
 Introduction
 The concept of Safety
 Accident Causation
 The Organisational Accident
 Human Factors and Safety
 Culture and Safety
 The Rational for Safety Management
 Hazards and Safety
 Hazard Identification and Analysis
 Rik management
 Introduction
 The requirement for establishment of
Safety Management Systems in the
aviation Industry came as a requirement
from ICAO
 ICAO is a United Nations Organisation that
issues International standards related to
Civil Aviation
 ICAO stands for International Civil
Aviation Organisation
 ICAO requirements apply to member states
ICAO REGULATIONS
APPLICABLE TO SMS
 ICAO Annex 6, Part 1, International
Commercial Air Transport

 From 1 January 2009, states shall

require, as part of their safety
programme, that an operator
implement a safety management
system acceptable to the State of the
operator
 ICAO Annex 6, Part 1
(Ammendment 33)
 Became applicable on 18 November 2010
 It applies to International commercial air
transport only
 It points out the 4 key elements (framework)
for the successful implementation of an SMS
under Appendix 7 as follows;

Safety policy and objectives

Safety risk management

Safety assurance

Safety promotion
ICAO Annex 6, Part II, International
General Aviation Section 3

 An operator shall establish and

maintain a safety management
system that is appropriate to the
size and complexity of the
operator
 What is a safety
Management system?
 SMS is not an entity or a thing that you
would find on an organisational chart.
 It is an integrated way of doing
business, managing safety, more
specifically managing and controlling
risk, much as an organisation manages
its other critical business operational
functions like finance, human
resources, operations etc
 So, Acc to ICAO Doc 9859, an
SMS is;

A systematic approach to managing

safety, including the necessary
organisational structures,
accountabilities, policies and
procedures.
Safety management -is about
protection against undesired outcomes
or losses…and of course flight safety,
or not having an accident.
An effective Safety Management
System (SMS) makes the difference
between knowing that you are safe
versus believing or hoping that you
are.
 Objectives of SMS
 To provide a structured management
approach to control safety risks in
operations.
 To provide a positive culture which
promotes safety, quality and effectiveness
in the organisation’s operations.
 To administrate safety and achieve results
in which safety management is part of the
business strategy.
 Benefits of SMS
 Proactively identifies safety hazards
 Proactively addresses safety risks
 Improves employees morale
 Prevents incidents and accidents
 Reduces organisational financial burden
 Improves statutory compliance
 To achieve the goal of quality,
productivity and profit
 The Concept of Safety
 Definition of Safety
 Safety is the state or condition in which
the risk of harm to persons or property
damage is reduced to, and maintained at
or below, an acceptable level through a
continuing process of hazard
identification and risk management
 Example to explain the
term Safety
 Re-fuelling of an aircraft
 There is an inherent hazard because fuel is
highly inflammable
 There is therefore an inherent risk of fire
leading to death of persons and damage to
property
 So, safety in this case is a process of
identifying various factors that could increase
the chances of a fire and taking steps to
ensure that those factors are taken care of and
a fire does not break out.
 So, in this case;
 The safety condition is;

A complete ban on smoking

A complete ban on use of mobile phones on
the air side

Precautions of keeping saw dust readily
available in case of spilt fuel

Also ensuring that the a/c and the fuel bowser
are grounded through a bonding wire to
prevent sparks through static electricity that
could result in a fire
 NB.
 Always note that Safety is a condition and is
therefore subject to change. Any changes in the
environment would automatically require a relook in
the safety conditions
 Failures will occur, in spite of the most accomplished
prevention efforts
 No human activity or human-made system can be
guaranteed to be absolutely free from hazard and
operational errors
 Controlled risk and controlled error are acceptable
in an inherently safe system
This brings us to the point
that;

 We can not eliminate risk but

reduce it to an acceptable level
(cost-benefit analysis)
 Acceptable level of risk or safety
 Acceptable level of safety:
 The acceptable level of safety
expresses the safety goals of an oversight
authority, an operator, or a services
provider. From the perspective of the
relationship between oversight authorities
and operators/services providers, it provides
the minimum safety objective(s) acceptable
to the oversight authority to be achieved by
the operators/services providers while
conducting their core business functions.
 KEY DEFINITIONS
 Accident:

an undesired event giving rise to death, ill health,
injury, damage or other loss.
 Error:

means an action or inaction that leads to
deviations from organisational intentions or
expectations;
 Error management:

Means the process of detecting and
responding to errors with countermeasures that
reduce or eliminate the consequences of errors,
and mitigate the probability of errors
 Hazard:
 A condition or object with a potential for causing

injuries to personnel, damage to property,

equipment or structures, loss of material, or
reduction of ability to perform a prescribed
function
 Incident:
 Means an occurrence other than an accident,

associated with the operation of an aircraft, which

affects or could affect the safety of operations
 Risk:
 Combination of the likelihood and
consequences of a specialized
hazardous event occurring.
 Risk assessment:
 The overall process of estimating the
magnitude of risk and deciding
whether or not the risk is tolerable.
The Evolution of Safety
Management Process
 1950s-1960s- Frequent accidents
 Belief was that technological improvements
would reduce the number of accidents
 With technological improvements,
Accidents continued occurring
 1970s- Focus shifted to Human factors
and Quality Management
 Emphasized on standardization and
consistency
 Accidents continued to occur
 This led to rethinking of accidents
and safety
 1996- the aviation industry now
visualized the causes of accidents
through the prism of Prof James
Reason’s theory that, accidents are
not the result of a single factor but a
chain of events
Example of chain of
events
 Prof James Reason thus brought the attention
of the airline industry to the fact that people
react to the same situation differently, based
on their thoughts, experiences and state of
mind
 This then led to the advent of the
organisational Accident Theory werein the
entire organisation is held responsible for the
occurrence of an accident or inversely the
entire organisation contributes to stoppage of
an accident
The perspective of the
organisational Accident
  Workforce stability
 Qualifications and
experience
 Morale
 Credibility
 Ergonomics
 ...

Factors that directly influence the efficiency of people in

aviation workplaces.
 Actions or inactions by people (pilots, controllers, maintenance
engineers, aerodrome staff, etc.) that have an immediate adverse effect.
Improve Identify
Monitor

Reinforce
Contain
 Approaches to Safety
 From the early days (1960s) to present
 The difference in the approaches is in the
questions asked in so far as accident
Investigation is concerned
 In the early days, accident investigations
looked for answers to

WHAT? WHEN? WHO?

… …Did it …is to
Happened happen Blame
 Today, investigations seek Answers to:
HOW? WHY?

……It happened

And ways and means of ensuring that it does not

happen again
This approach does not aim to assign blame/ punish
anyone but is aimed at improvement of the aviation
system
 The transition from Fix the Blame
Approach to the Fix the Problem
Approach has resulted in a
substantial reduction in the number
of aviation related accidents and
incidents