System Safety Principles and Techniques in The Aviation Industry - Research Paper Example

 Abstract The aviation safety refers to efforts that are taken by the management of the aviation industry to ensure that airplanes are free from factors that may lead to accidents resulting into injury and loss of property or lives. The aviation industry is guided by the system safety principles and techniques that need to be met as a precaution to ensure that the safety of the people and property are given priority. The system safety principle will provide guidance on the design of the airplanes, and ensure that the airplanes meet the safety standards and techniques. System Safety Principles and Techniques in the Aviation Industry Introduction The main priority of everyone working in the aviation industry is to ensure that aviation safety is provided to all the passengers, goods, and those working within the industry. The aviation safety falls in the minds of both the policy makers and the passengers themselves and is a matter of international concern. The aviation safety is a complex matter since it depends upon a number of factors such as the skilled labor, maintenance personnel, and airplane repair stations. These calls for a well-structured system safety and techniques to ensure that high safety standard are maintained in the aviation industry. The paper will explore the system safety principles and techniques used in the aviation industry Aviation System Safety Principles The system safety in the aviation industry are the system engineering used to support program risk management. It entails the application of engineering and management principles, criteria and techniques applied to maximize safety of the passengers. In order for system safety to work effectively to achieve its goal of optimizing the safety of the passengers, it is in order that safety related risks be identified first and them good strategies on how to control or eliminate this risks be formulated. This would be dependent on the kind of system design and procedures used (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009). 1. The Aviation must be and Continue to be Safe The aviation industry is considered as one of the safest and reliable organization. This has been attributed to the high level of safety standards and professionalism in the industry. This has seen few accidents happening to the airplanes compared to other modes of transports. This has been attributable to their principle that the aircraft operations must be and continue to be safe. This has ensured that the industry does not work under trial and error but instead professionalism is the order of operation be it the manufacturing, maintenance or repair of the aircrafts. The aviation industry consists of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) community charged with the responsibility of carrying out research, to ensure that the aviation industry acquire the operator components of the aircraft that meet the international standards. The industry is also structured in a manner that different department are assigned a function. The departments are the airborne functions that ensure safety of planes while on air. There is also a ground based function composed of air traffic services, air traffic flow, and air space management teams. The teams ensure that safety plans is maintained be it on air or while on land (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009). 1.1. The aviation industry must provide for Current Safety and operating practices. The principle ensures that systems and operations are evaluated in order to identify, and assess the viability and provide documentation on the safety standards and requirements. Current operations offer protection to the system from safety-related risks. This ensures that proper system design and processes are put in place to ensure that safety standards are maintained at the aviation industry. Current operations would also ensure that professionals are employed to carry out the work as expected. This is by ensuring that there are well-trained cockpit crews, airplane controllers, and healthy safety sky is maintained at all times to prevent accidents. The current safety and operating practices also ensures that standards of procedures for air traffic are in place. The procedures ensure that aircraft collisions are prevented and that there is an orderly flow of airlines free from obstruction that may result into accident (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009). The aviation industry ensures that there are adequate learning practices for its entire staff. The principle ensures that records on accidents are recorded, and controllers required offering open forum discussion so that analysis of the causes of the accidents can be done and the staff learns from the record. From the analysis of the past accidents, control measures are then device to prevent such an accident from occurring in future. From the principle, it is evident that sufficient tools can now be found in aviation industry that can assist in the detection of accidents automatically. The analysis of past accidents have also led to many aviation industries acquiring an automatic safety monitoring tool and this has helped a lot in the management of airplane accidents (Krause, 2003). The principle ensures that the Air Traffic management operates to an acceptable level of risk. This ensures that the ATM put in place safeguards that control the precursors that may eventually turn into accidents. This is through formation of different management teams to deal with different risks. The ATM therefore ensures that there is strategic conflict management team composed of airspace organization, Traffic Synchronization management and the demand and capacity balancing team. These teams are meant to assist in the strategic planning of disaster and risk managements in the aviation industry. The ATM is also made up of tactical management team. The tactical team ensures that proper preventive measures are put in place to avoid occurrence of accidents such as those resulting from collision of airplanes. The principle also provides that airspace is classified in a manner that allows different types of air operations to co-exist safely. It also requires that airspace structuring, routs, and flight levels are safely management to avoid accidents (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009). 2.1. Current safety must be assured The principle requires that appropriate processes and procedures be followed and updates made whenever necessary. This processes and procedures involve continuous monitoring of performances against what the aviation industry expects to achieve. For current safety to be assured there, must be adequate identification and risk evaluation of hazards. Therefore it is necessary that the hazards are adequately identified, assessed, and mitigation strategies used to tract the hazards (Krause, 2003). Strategic and tactical safety trends must be collected and analyzed. The principle requires that safety-learning approaches are developed to extract and record what is learnt from the data related information. It also requires that the design and the operational levels in the system lifecycle should be in a position to access the database so that they can be able to observe what happened in the past that could be related to a particular operational system. The principle also requires that the aviation industry formalizes a data collection and process of analysis of disasters. This must be organized in a systematic manner and standardized to benefit the aviation industry. The reason being standardization and analysis would offer an effective dissemination of safety trends across the aviation industry. Impediments to effective data collection must be eliminated. The principle recognizes that the controllers of the aviation industry should report honest mistakes. It is therefore necessary that the Air Traffic Management (ATM), to ensure that legal impediments that could scare away the controllers from reporting honest mistakes are removed. Operational significant events within the aviation industry must be investigated to determine the probable causes so that the controllers can be able to understand the dynamics of the risks. Once these investigations are done and analyzed, effective measures specified to mitigate any eminent risks in the industry (Perrin et al, 2005). The aviation industry is also governed by the principle that action must occur before a serious safety event manifests itself. The aviation industry ensures that there is sufficient preliminary planning strategies to counter accidents are put in place. This is by ensuring that hazard identification and risk analysis are incorporated in the preliminary stage of planning. Perrin et al, (2005) argues that safety works is directly related to safety issues. As such, key findings should be transferred very fast to the aviation industry for them to be able to gain from the insight realized. The principle ensures that key risk areas are identified and resolved in time. This has helped the aviation industry in prevention of many accidents, which could easily occur if key risks areas are not identified in time and resolved especially those that are urgent in nature. Key risk areas that are long term in nature are also singled out, monitored, and resolved. The aviation industry does this by formulating a long-term plan to deal with such issues. This is because in any industry there must always be risk areas that usually emerge especially when changes are made. When a problem arise, it is important that the aviation management team can have a better understanding of how to deal with such problems. For example changes in the whether patterns may affect the movement of airplane causing a risk to the crew and passengers. It is therefore important to plan in advance on how to tackle such problems in case they arise (Federal Aviation Administration, 2009). The system safety principle also requires that key risks in the aviation industry are prioritized in a very pro-active manner. Prioritization of key risks ensures that enhancements to safety in the aviation industry are optimized in a most cost effective way at the shortest time possible. It also requires that those key risk areas that the aviation management consider to have an immediate impact on the safety of the passengers in any state is given first priority. This is because it will lead to an informed risk implementation plan. The aviation industry operates under good safety cultures that have seen it be considered a highly reliable organization. Perrin et al (2005) argues that the only way by which the aviation industry can lose its reputation as a reliable and efficient organization is through fundamental change. The aviation industry has ensured that a good safety culture exist for its entire staff. This is by ensuring that there is individual dedication and accountability in the industry. Through accountability and personal dedication to maintaining high safety standards, instances of laxity and negligence has been minimized which has seen the industry reduce many risk issues that may put lives of passengers and good at risk. The good culture has also pervasive safety thinking promotes commitment to excellence. It is for this reason that the aviation industry strives to create positive attitude, safety awareness, and commitment to safety. The good organization culture requires the commitment of senior management, involvement of all employees in safety (Perrin et al, 2005). The aviation industry ensures that Safety training is put in place. Training is considered important in the aviation industry since it helps in the elimination of risks in situations where it is impossible to control the risks through other modes such as giving warning, design selection among others. The aviation industry provides a formal training and coaching through using its internal and external resource. The industry provide formal training to controllers, air traffic controllers and instructors to enable them perform their duties in a more effective and professional manner. This principle has help in reducing complacency are increased the knowledge of the staff in dealing with safety issues. Through safety training, team-working principle is put into practice to ensure that the team work together and safely and share information and tasks assigned. An audit is also carried out to ascertain if the team is working in a resilient manner (Krause, 2003). 1.3. Future Safety must be assured The principle requires that operations within the aviation industry be monitored to identify precursor patterns in order to be able to minimize future risks. In this, case the aviation industry’s full lifecycle of the risk if studied and understood. The system also ensures that new systems to be implemented are safe. This is by carrying out an operational readiness test on the systems (Perrin et al, 2005). The aviation industry also operates on the safety principle in which future risks that are unseen are identified. They believe by understanding the future risks they are able to mitigate it before it happens. This has help the aviation industry in preventing many accidents be issuing warning in time in case there is an eminent accident like to happen. The aviation industry studies the future by studying the past accidents. They then construct the future accidents in a hazard analysis. This helps in understanding potential accidents likely to happen in future (Stolzer, Halford & Goglia, 2010). 1. Safety Management Must be effectively Organized There has to be a safety management to perform the functions of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling functions in each safety-related issue. The aviation industry ensures that there is real commitment to safety. They believe that commitment to safety is the force behind the good performance of the aviation industry. As such, a safety management system cannot work effectively if there is no commitment by both the management and the employees (Perrin et al, 2005). 2. Boundary aspects and interdependencies between Air Traffic Management and aircraft operations must be and continue to be safe. The nature of the aviation industry involves interdependence aircraft operation and the Air Traffic Management. It is therefore necessary for the systems and operations to cover aviation without separation. This calls for highly integrated air traffic and aircraft operations coordination. This is because an overall safety approach helps in the delivery of the future safe aviation system. For this reasons the aviation industry consider it prudent that an aircraft operations must and should always continue to be safe. In fact, this fact actually holds, as there are very little incidences of aircraft accidents happening across the world (Krause, 2003). Aviation System Safety Techniques Bird Harassment, Repellent, and deterrent Technique. Accidents caused by wildlife have been a major concern to the aviation industry especially the birds. Airplane in some instances has been felled down by birds through collision in the sky. The aviation management has therefore adopted a technique bird harassment, repellant, and deterrent technique to scare away the birds and avoid collision. (Belant et al, 2011). Portable Water Management Technique Portable Water Management (PPM) is a technique used by the civil aviation in ensuring safety of its passengers and crews. This is because many aircrafts operates in different countries in which there are some water borne diseases such as cholera, amoeba, and dysentery among others. These diseases occur occasionally where standards of sanitation are low. PPM operational process ensures in line with the World health Organization ensures that there is safe and hygienic water by performing a sampling test on the water (Liou, Tzeng & Chang, 2007). Use of Seat belts The aviation industry also ensures that the seats on the places are fixed with seat belts. This prevents instances of people falling off the plane when negotiating a corner. Seat belts also help passengers during a takeoff or landing of a train. The technique has helped a lot in maintaining safety of passengers. The Flag Carrier Technique In every airport, there is a flag carrier who controls the take-off and landing of airplanes. This technique of putting a flag carrier is for safety reasons. This is because the flag carriers assist is directing pilots while taking off or landing to prevent collision with other planes that may be on the runway. In conclusion, the system safety principles used in the aviation industry can be seen to be the force behind its success and reliability. This is seen from the first principle that aviation must be and continues to be safe. This principle provide a true reflection of what is happening in the aviation industry as it is seen as the most reliable organization in the transport industry in terms of safety measures and precautions. The techniques applied in maintaining safety of the passengers has also contributed a lot in ensuring that the safety of the passengers is prioritized in the aviation industry. References Belant, J., Martin, J., National Research Council (U.S.) & Transportation Research Board (2011). Bird Harassment, Repellent, and Deterrent Techniques for Use on and near airports: as synthesis of Airport Practice. Washington DC, USA: Transportation Research Board Publication. Federal Aviation Administration (2009) Aviation Instructor’s Handbook. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing Krause S.S (2003). Aircraft safety: accident investigations, analyses, and applications. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Professional Liou, J., Tzeng, G., Chang, H (2007). Airline safety mearsurment using a hybrid model: Journal of Air Transport management. Elsevier publication, Vol. 13, 243-249 Stolzer, A., Halford, C., Goglia, J. (2010). Safety Management Systems in Aviation. Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing. Read More