A bare six months-worth of global airline accident statistics may not seem like a solid base for serious statistical analysis, but assembling the accident data for the first half of each year for the last decade produces a graph that traces much the same pattern as the full-year figures do for the same 10 years. Both paint a picture of stagnation, of an industry that has run out of new ideas for advancing safety performance, except possibly for throwing technology at it in the long term.
Actually it is not entirely out of ideas, but the low-hanging fruit has all been picked, and the message now is about adopting safety management systems, a rather unglamorous concept that seems to fill many operators with dread. The thought process goes something like this: "But we already care about safety. If anything goes wrong we fix it."
Pro-active risk management is the only way forward now if airline safety - already good - is to become better. A well-designed safety management system, to work well, has to be tailored for each carrier. What it boils down to is a better way of doing the things that have always been done and still need doing. It's ordinary engineering and operations management with a built-in diagnostic system designed to reveal potential problems before they do any harm. Building in the diagnostic system and a reporting culture is the main trick, plus a setting up a system for acting on the information it reveals. The result is a better-managed operation with lower costs resulting partly because there are fewer expensive incidents and less often a mess to clear up.
At present, most of the airline world still relies on reactive safety management: a system of finding out what caused the accident, and trying not to let it happen again. It's a valid system, but the trouble is that the commercial air transport industry - despite the existence of safety information exchange systems - does not act like an airline with a proper closed-loop safety management system. Many airline operations and training departments look at someone else's accident and see it as just that: someone else's. It does not relate to them.
How many carriers have, like Ethiopian Airlines this year, faced the loss of an aircraft over the sea at night? The answer is seven since 2000, and they have killed 976 people. But the industry has not even been trying to get its head around this phenomenon. Safety management systems at airline level are fundamental, but an industry-wide culture that encourages carriers to learn from each others' experiences is also direly needed.
Source: Flight International
