Safety and Your Flight DepartmentThe issues of safety in a flight department are as numerous as are the offspring in a termite colony and so large one can never get one’s arms completely around them. When something is so varied and so large that it cannot be bought, it becomes priceless. Safety cannot be bought. It is not the manuals, policies or procedures that make aviation safety. What is the value of safety? To a machine, safety has no value. Safety to a person is only as valuable as the settlement the legal system delivers. To a company safety is like the ghost of the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room. It cannot be seen or heard, but it can be felt. It affects every person in the room; it affects what they do and how they do it. The gorilla is so large, so menacing it affects people and things not directly associated with the occupants of the room; the lawyers, judges and street vendors outside courthouses would be examples. Ultimately, the most important contributor to operational safety during flight is the pilot. Unfortunately, as humans, pilots are occasionally victim to mistakes of omission or commission and circumstances. It is the consequence of those mistakes that culminates in an accident. Accidents by definition are unavoidable. No airplane ever hurt itself. Maybe the hangar fell on it or it may have been hit by the fuel truck, but the plane did not injure itself. Some person caused it damage. People on airplanes do not intend to hurt themselves or someone else (not withstanding intentional criminal acts) either. Accidents happen. We can only do our best to establish policies that provide procedures, training and practices that remove as many catalysts that may initiate the chain of events that could culminate in an accident. These policies and procedures are known as risk management. Risk management is an important tool for flight department management. It is an essential tool for documenting the policy and procedural practices mandated by those responsible for controlling the risk exposure to the corporate being. The programs and manuals (some acronyms used to identify such manuals and programs are: SMS, ERP, GOM, IOM) that help make the flight department safe are useless until the people that make the flight department function accept those precepts as culture. It is people that make safety priceless, but it is risk management that protects its value. Safety is about being consistently responsible, prudent and conscientious. Being responsible about safety includes realizing that accidents can happen. Responsibility also demands that one attempts to identify hazards that may produce accidents. Prudent means the likelihood of an accident happening, as a result of the hazard identified, has been eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level. Being conscientious requires that responsible, prudent actions become an integral dynamic of the organization and the personnel within. Risk management provides an organized way to identify and analyze hazards. It offers documented processes by which the effort to eliminate or reduce risk occurred. In short, all the exertions of people within an organization to be responsible, prudent and conscientious are memorialized by a formal risk management program. Risk management provides real-time dollar savings. It offers probable savings when considering the potential costs associated with an operational accident. Risk management is a benefit, not a perception. About Bill Gardner Today, Bill utilizes his expert aviation knowledge and insights to provide comprehensive consulting services related to IS-BAO and regulatory compliance audits, aviation management and litigation testimony. Bill is focused on helping his clients maximize their growth potential and achieve operational excellence. Contact Information: To receive the Air Charter Journal e-mail:
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