International Helicopter Safety Team Safety Management System Toolkit

employee is essential to making the process effective.
A non-punitive disciplinary policy demonstrates
management's commitment to achieving the organization's
safety goals.
When producing an occurrence or hazard
report, every effort should be made to ensure the
form is easy to understand and user friendly. The
organization should strive to make all reporting
forms compatible for each area of the operation.
This will facilitate data sharing, trend analysis and
will also make the occurrence or hazard investigation
process easier.
Depending on the size of the organization, the
most expedient data collection method might be to
utilize existing paperwork, such as flight and maintenance
reports. The use of hand written reports or the
information derived from verbal reports is equally
acceptable. However, verbal accounts should always
be followed-up with a written report.
An organization’s safety reporting
system should encompass the following
fundamental elements:
Systems for reporting hazards, events or
safety concerns
Systems for analyzing data, safety reports and
other safety related information
Methods for the collection, storage and distribution
of data
Corrective action and risk reduction strategies
On-going monitoring
Confirmation of the effectiveness of
corrective action
Not just flight operations:
Maintenance errors are known to be a significant
cause of aviation accidents. If maintenance had not
formed one of the links in a chain of events, an accident
might not have occurred. These links are often
simple errors that, when combined with other factors,
might result in catastrophe. For example, low air pressure
in just one tire can result in major damage or
destruction of an aircraft, serious injury or death to
hundreds of people and the failure of an airline.
Courtesy of Gordon Dupont, CEO, System Safety Services Inc.
One of the problems is that maintenance personnel
are sometimes not the best communicators.
They live with and work around known hazards
until an accident occurs.
In order for a Safety Management System to work,
maintenance must report hazards with a potential to
cause an accident, because the “little things have the
potential to become big things (accidents).” In order
to reduce human error to “As Low As Reasonably
Practical” (or ALARP), everyone must do their part to
report the little things that have the potential to
become big things. This can be accomplished by:
Reporting things pertaining to facilities, equipment or
procedures that interfere with doing the job safely.
Reporting human errors or near misses that would
enable safety nets to be developed to prevent a
future occurrence.
Maintenance technicians have the duty and responsibility
to report anything having the potential to
become a hazard so that a risk analysis can be made.
SMS Toolkit 55