Safety

SUSAN PARSON
Risky Business
The What, How, and Why of Risk Management
A ship is always safe at the shore — but that is NOT what it is built for.
— Albert Einstein
Once upon a time, pretty much everyone involved
in aviation took an “accidents happen” view of
the world. From time to time in my pre-internet
youth, I would pick up the newspaper or turn on
the TV news to learn about a major airline accident.
The photos were always grim. The details of each
accident differed, but the result was the same. The
investigation would reveal some human, mechanical,
or meteorological flaw. Government and industry
would come up with a way to address the issue,
and off we’d go until the cycle repeated with the
next accident.
The “find, fix, and fly” approach resulted in a
number of safety enhancements over the years.
There was better training (including crew resource
management, or CRM) for flight crews, maintenance
personnel, and air traffic controllers. There
were upgrades to airplanes and avionics. There was
research on weather phenomena such as wind shear.
There were new rules to ensure that everyone complied
with the changes.
These improvements made major accidents less
common, but everyone involved in aviation eventually
realized that just waiting for the next accident
to put a spotlight on some heretofore undiscovered
flaw was not the best way to improve aviation safety.
The community — to include government as
well as all segments of the industry — also came to
understand that even the most faithful adherence to
rules and regulations will not prevent the next accident.
There is no question that following regulations
is a vital part of aviation safety risk management.
The rules provide an essential foundation for aviation
safety. They are meant to direct the pilot’s path
toward practices that contribute to safe operation
and away from activities that undermine it.
The problem is that while regulations are necessary,
they are not sufficient in and of themselves.
They offer comprehensive and
sometimes exquisitely detailed
treatment of individual issues.
Still, regulations simply cannot
cover the nearly infinite number
of possible combinations of situations
that can undermine safety.
In this respect, regulations
alone are like bricks
without mortar.
Photo by H. Dean Chamberlain
8 FAA Safety Briefing January/February 2017