Safety management must provide strong, demonstrable, and visible leadership if the safety program to succeed. Management’s accident prevention attitude and safety culture are typically reflected in the attitudes of the supervisors which in turn are reflected in attitudes of the operators and maintainers in the aviation industry. If key leadership does not demonstrate a genuine interest in the safety program, it is likely that few others in the organization will give the program a chance to succeed. Some of the duties of the safety manager are: Employee Involvement (directly applying the program to employees that are actively participants in the area around hazards), Responsibility and Accountability (assigning responsibility to key personnel to ensure the program is being flowed. Also, making employees responsible for their areas that are lacking in the programs.), Trends Analysis and Risk Management (identifying hazardous trends and applying ways to mitigate them.), Accident Investigation, Hazardous Prevention and Control Programs (This topic is where the manager will need to work closely with OSHA and EPA to ensure they are following regulations.), Communication (ensuring that all the areas of your program flow to each member of the aviation community, and that they can also communicate with you.), and Training.
As you can see the safety manager has many responsibilities in the aviation industry. Without a safety manager there would be no one person responsible for the success of the safety program. The importance of a safety manager can most clearly be observed in the lack of aviation mishaps. Though there will always be mishaps, the manager’s duty is to ensure they are steadily reducing. As long as there are hazards in the aviation industry there will be a need for a safety manager. The cost of losing a multimillion dollar aircraft and/or countless customers goes without saying. The safety manager’s position is a valuable and important position.

Making Aviation Ground Operations Safer...

As stated in my other blogs there are several hazardous situations involved with the aviation industry. In this blog I am going to discuss some of the preventative measures the industry has to reduce the number and type of accidents and injuries. Some of the areas that are hazardous ground operations include: ramp operations, specialized services (aviation fuel handling, aircraft rescue and fire fighting, and deicing), and runway incursions. Now that we have identified some of the hazards associated with aviation ground operations, we can discuss some of the safety practices.
I believe the most important safety practice is just that, practice. (Commonly referred to as training in the industry). Most of the procedures that are in place to avoid ground mishaps are trainable. Training procedures are intended to increase knowledge, skills, and overall performance of pilots, controllers, vehicle operators, and other individuals who interact on the surface of airports. Some guidelines to aide in the development of a ground safety plan are:

Give written and practical exams to flight instructors and pilots to identify areas that need improvements both in the area of pilots and airport design. Modify existing training for air traffic controllers is also used in the procedures. When observing the procedures for air traffic controllers emphasis is to be placed on: situational awareness, task and resource management, understanding of individual and team roles and responsibilities, decision making, coordination (communication and team building), retraining and refresher training, and incursion examples that have occurred at their airports. Procure hardware for training pilots and controllers. Develop awareness and educational material for the aviation community. Review federal aviation regulations to determine if the safety program is in need of modifications. Lastly, require airports to implement incursion prevention plans in the construction and development of the airfield.

These safety practices can be applied to every aspect of aviation ground operations. The main thing to take away from this post is the fact that these practices are simply guidelines for developing your own safety procedures. They are to be modified as situations and regulations occur. It is the responsibility of all to ensure every aspect of aviation is continually monitored and upgraded. This way we can all help reduce the incidents occurring on our airports surfaces.

Aircraft Towing

There are many hazardous areas of aviation. While most of the hazards associated with aviation are during flight, there are areas of ground operations that can cause much damage as well. One of the common hazards in aviation ground operations is the repositioning of aircraft on the airfield. This is a very common practice used by all aviation installations. To properly tow an aircraft you need to have a regulation in place to ensure personal and property safety. Below is a risk management program that I have used many times throughout my aviation career.
First you need to identify the risk associated with towing an aircraft. The main risk include: aircraft and property damage and personal injury. Now that we have identified the risk we need to set in place some mitigator to aide in the prevention of mishaps.
Some of the risk mitigation efforts I have used are: Establishing a minimum number of personnel to execute the job (usually for Blackhawk it is six. One person in the aircraft with access to the aircraft brakes, one on each blade tip (4), and one person with the proper license to operate the towing equipment.) Ensure the proper equipment is available and properly maintained. Establish a standard operating procedure for towing aircraft that personnel can reference if needed. Note: your standard operating procedure you must have emphasis on towing in confined areas and towing in extreme weather conditions. Ensure all towing personnel are properly trained and maintain a high level of readiness. Establish a procedure to use in the event of a mishap to include notification procedures.
This is just a standard that I have used since my first days as an aviator. There are many other risk management procedures out there. Some are better, and some are worse. It is the responsibility of every aviator to ensure that standards are met and regulations are followed. Many times aircraft ground operation mishaps are preventable.

Aviation Reporting Systems

The accident and its investigation are the most valuable source of insights and information that lead to the prevention of aviation accidents. Reporting systems can be organized in several different way. The two main types of reporting systems used by federal authorities are mandatory and voluntary.

Mandatory Reporting System

In a mandatory reporting system people are required to report certain types of incidents. There are also regulations on who shall report and what is to be reported. If there were not regulations to cover this system, there would be no way to enforce the mandatory system. Incidents that include day-to-day problems and normal defects are not considered mandatory to report. This ensures that there is a base level, in which, there are certain occurrences that do not require reporting. This helps keep the reporting system from being flooded with unnecessary problems. Mandatory reporting systems focus more on technical malfunctions then on human errors. A good rule of thumb is if ever in doubt, report it.

Voluntary Reporting System

In the voluntary reporting system, anyone who is associated with the aviation industry is “invited” to report on hazards. In this system there is no obligation to report. Anyone can report any incident they are involved in or observed. The voluntary system requires that a trusted third party must manage the system. This helps ensure the person reporting the incident has a sense of comfort. To aid in this comfort level, the voluntary system does not require any identification information. For this reason, the voluntary system tends to be more successful than the mandatory system in collecting human factor related information.

Managing Human Factors in Aviation

It is important for aviators to accept the inevitable fact that human errors will always occur. No human is expected to perform flawlessly at all times. Human error is an event that occurs whenever a task or a task element (portion of a task) is not performed in accordance with its specification. An error occurs when a task is not performed when required (also referred to as the error of omission), is performed when not required (also referred to as the error of commission), is performed incorrectly (also referred to as an error of substitution), is performed out of sequence (not performing in accordance with the aircraft checklist), or is performed late (overshooting the runway).
There are many management procedures in effect to reduce the occurrence of human errors in aviation. They are broken into two sections: engineering control strategies and administrative control strategies. Engineering strategies concentrate on the use of engineering through automation and human-factors engineering. Administrative strategies include employee selection and training, modifying or workload management, and regulatory non-design related initiatives.
Some of the engineering control strategies are cockpit standardization, cockpit automation, warning and altering systems, display conspicuity and system recovery, flight management computer and air-to-ground communication. More than 70 percent of the reports to the Aviation Safety Reporting System involve some type of oral communication problem related to the operation of an aircraft. For this reason, I would argue that the most important engineering control system is the air-to-ground communication control system.
Administrative error management includes to collection of practices and procedures that are developed, promulgated, and implemented by the airlines, regulatory agencies, and labor groups. Some of the administrative control strategies include: airline practices, employee selection, training, responsibility accountability, and enforcement, procedures and checklist, paperwork reduction and management, workload management, communication, team concept (cognitive redundancy), and peer-pressure control. Although my opinion is solely based on military flight training, I believe the most effective administrative control strategy is the training strategy. The cost of training can be very expensive, but the cost of human lives is without price.
Human error in the aviation industry can never be totally eliminated. However, through constant monitoring of accidents, incidents, and internal reports the number of human error occurrences can be greatly reduced. Throughout my career as an Army aviator I have seen the effectiveness of these strategies. The improvements on human errors in aviation continue without end. These strategies have given air transportation an excellent safety record.

Federal Aviation Administration

Man has always with the fascination of flight, and in 1903 aviation became a reality. Orville Wright (the first unlicensed aviator) accomplished the first ever power sustained flight on December 17th, 1903. Since that day, aviation has become an interest shared by many. With the first flight accomplished: the never ending race to develop an aircraft as means of transportation began. In the beginning aviation fatalities were a routine occurrence, with pilots flying at only 200 to 500 feet to maintain a reference with the ground at all times. Many night landing areas were marked with a camp fire to designate the aircraft was in the correct area for landing. With the aviation industry growing the government developed the Air Mail Act of 1925. In 1926 Congress passed the Air Commerce Act giving Department of Commerce regulatory authority over commercial aviation and responsibility to promote the aviation industry. This lead to the creation of the commercial aviation industry.
As the aviation industry became more utilized, aviation mishaps were also on the raise. In 1934 the Department of Commerce renamed the Aeronautics Branch the Bureau of Air Commerce. This name change hoped to instill the importance of the aviation industry to the nation. In 1938 the Civil Aeronautics Act was signed by President Roosevelt. With this act came an Air Safety Board that was to conduct investigations and recommend ways of preventing accidents.
Following a devastating commercial aviation midair collision leaving 128 people dead, the President signed the Federal Aviation Act in 1958. The act named the Federal Aviation Agency responsible for the safety of civil aviation. In 1966, Congress authorized the creation of the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration. The main duty of the two organizations was to establish rules regulations for the aviation industry. At this time, the National Transportation Safety Board was also established. They were created to determine and report the cause of transportation accidents and conduct programs to help prevent them from occurring.
Since the start of aviation in 1903, the safety of the industry has continually improved. The agency has assisted aviation in becoming an industry capable of enabling Americans to leisurely travel or to conduct business around the globe safely. The FAA has created the safest, most reliable, most efficient, and most productive air transportation system in the world.