The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

Military Regulation of Safety Cases
JSP318B
9.30
9.31
9.32
9.33
9.34
Chapter 9 – Background to Safety Cases
46
One of the key recommendations of the DCDP (Ops) Paper was that the existing “Controller Aircraft Release”
procedures for military air systems should be revised and published in a new “Safety Handbook for Air Systems”,
which would form part of Joint Service Publication (JSP)318B. 47 Adelard48 was subsequently contracted by the
MOD49 to produce a study for the re-structure and re-write of JSP318B, with a view to applying the principles
of modern safety management to military airworthiness. Adelard’s analysis dated 22 January 1998 led to the
following proposals (amongst others):
9.30.1 JSP318B should be based upon an explicitly defined Safety Management System for military aircraft.
9.30.2 An independently assessed Safety Case should become the central justification for military aircraft
airworthiness and a record of safety analysis activities.
9.30.3 In order to provide a single focus for airworthiness and maintenance of the Safety Case throughout
an aircraft’s lifecycle, a single MOD Project Director with responsibility for acquisition and in-Service
activities, known as the Aircraft Design Approval Authority, should be nominated.
9.30.4 The report stressed the importance of centres of excellence and corporate memory in ensuring structural
integrity, and the need for them in other areas relevant to safety, including Safety Case development.
9.30.5 The ALARP principle should be applied to military airworthiness and appropriate guidance provided.
Adelard recognised that there are significant problems in implementing ALARP in a military context and
that technical guidance and policy decisions on the method of application were required.
9.30.6 Internal and external audits and corrective action should be implemented
Following Adelard’s report, JSP318B was duly amended and published as “Regulations of the Airworthiness of
Ministry of Defence Aircraft”, JSP318B, 4th Edition, dated September 2002. The foreword to the new JSP318B
stated that it applied to all UK military aircraft and that it described “the Safety Management System adopted
by the Ministry of Defence for the management and regulation of military aircraft airworthiness”, in accordance
with the policy and associated arrangements agreed with the Defence Aviation Safety Board (DASB).
JSP318B is a lengthy document which contains a good deal of encouraging rhetoric about Safety Cases but little
in the way of practical guidance as to how actually to implement the policies and principles it promulgates.
50
It is nonetheless fair to say that the objectives of the Safety Management System (SMS) were clearly stated
as being to: (1) establish and maintain an effective management structure and organisation for implementing
and promulgating airworthiness policy; (2) assess the safety performance of the equipment and the safety
management system itself by measurement and audit; (3) provide for the documentation of the evidence for
airworthiness in a Safety Case; and (4) establish mechanisms for learning from the MOD’s and others’ experience
in safety and airworthiness.
Chapter 2 of JSP318B dealt with the “Safety Management System for Military Aircraft Airworthiness”. It
provided51 that the Safety Management System (SMS) for a project was to be described in a Safety Management
Plan (SMP) and that the Safety Case was to provide the “objective justification for the airworthiness of the
46 The formal certification of the airworthiness of the aircraft design within stated flight limitations and operational configurations. This also formed
the basis of the formal “Release to Service” in accordance with JSP318B.
47 The Joint Service Publications (JSPs) are tri-Service regulations.
48 An independent consultancy specialising in inter alia safety management systems and safety cases.
49 Contract MAP2b/1351.
50 JSP318B, 4 th Edition, Chapter 2, paragraph 2.2.
51 Ibid, Chapter 2, paragraph 2.42.
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