Safety Officer Teleconference (1)

This was the inaugural teleconference sponsored by AeronomX providing a convenient and easy venue for flight department Safety Officers to meet and discuss issues they are encountering with Safety Management. Here are the notes from the meeting. It is difficult to get into much detail as to what was discussed about each issue, so you are encouraged to join in on the next calls.

• I pointed out that though there hasn’t been an announcement yet from IBAC, but the new 2014 ISBAO Standards are available for download from the IBAC website. One thing I wish to especially mention, the new Protocol form got rid of Form 8.1 that was the auditor evaluation of the SMS. These points have been incorporated into the main protocol but are color-coded blue and green section within Chapter 3. These colored sections are to be completed by the auditor.
• There was a question about whether the NBAA was coming out soon with some guidelines about fatigue management. Following the call, I spoke with Doug Carr with NBAA about this. He informed me that Flight Safety Foundation, NBAA, IBAC, and a vendor Alertness Solutions have been working together on coming out with Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) guidelines. Yes, they were initially planning to have the guidelines out last month, but they reached out to ICAO to seek their input, and that has slowed everything down. The new goal is to have the guidelines out in time for BASS in April. The guidelines are meant to incorporate the latest research about fatigue and its effects into the guidelines of ICAO SARPS in Annex 6, Part II, Chapter 3. No country has come out with FRMS regulation yet. The guideline will also provide tools for flight departments to help them with setting up an FRMS.
• There was a discussion that I led that pointing out that in processing a hazard report, there must be a genuine analysis performed in trying to determine the root cause of the problem. I commonly see that only the “symptoms” of the problem are being addressed and not drilling down to the root cause. Use the “5 Whys” or other methods for root cause analysis. There are some documents within the SMS toolkit to help. I used the example of a department that had a gauge explode on the oxygen-serving bottle. Fortunately no one got hurt. In addition to just simply replacing the gauge, their root cause analysis came up with an aging equipment issue. The OEM of the gauge recommended changing out the gauge every 10 years. The operator had no idea how old the gauge was. This started them on a program of looking at the age and condition of all their support equipment.
• There was a great question about what does it really mean, what are the advantages, for a flight department to be a Stage 3 instead of just staying a Stage 2. There was a lengthy discussion that followed, but the main points mentioned were:
  
  1. IBAC encourages everyone to strive to achieve Stage 3, but it is OK to stay a Stage 2 several times over. No limit has been mentioned that an operator can stay a Stage 2.
     
  2. I wish to point out the IBAC ISBAO Registration Certificate does not state on it whether you are a Stage 1, 2, or a 3. No one knows what stage you are except yourself and IBAC. In my mind, it is most important to have an SMS and be sincerely working it, whether you are a 2 or a 3.
     
  3. I also mentioned that a major issue is following all of the aspects of the SMS that you have written into your manual. If you have a change in your department, like new personnel or new aircraft or switching to using iPads, do the Change Management process, really. And document it. If your manual says you have safety meetings, have them and document them.
     
  4. It was mentioned that flight department management should always want to strive for Stage 3.
     
• In conclusion, the participants on the call felt this teleconference was beneficial. The feedback was having the call once a month is probably frequent enough, but sometimes at the last minute it is not possible to join, and it would be another month till the next opportunity.
  
  1. For the calls that are recorded, I will have them available only to those that call or email me to request them. They must be the Safety Officer in their flight department.
     
  2. Each month I will record one session and the other will not be recorded.
     
  3. I am volunteering that I will hold the calls twice a month to allow another opportunity to participate.
     
  4. This was the reason I wanted to record the calls and have them available for download. However, the feedback from the participants was to not record the calls.
     
• Future calls will be on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month at 1130 Eastern Time.