non-functional safety programs: ASAP, SMS, &ct
"... In these days of SMS, where was the internal oversight ..."
This is one aspect (and there will be others from inside FAA's SW Region) that will be of future interest to the SMS-boosters:
Can SMS (or ASAP) really work? -- when inside the FAA’s SW-Region there exists a cozy relationship between “regulator” and “operator”? In some cases, there has been a role-reversal, with the operator informing the local “regulator” about their locally invented “standard”.
Currently the ASAP program (as practiced inside FAA’s SW-Region) has shown some of the weaknesses that will affect SMS: an investigation of a minor-mishap failed to recognize the “system” weakness that caused a minor mishap. The USA’s independent Safety Board claims they (NTSB) have no authority to re-appraise such a misguided ASAP Event Review (citing that anything-ASAP is privileged information). With a failed ASAP-program (won’t correct minor errs and lack of oversight), and a failed company “safety czar”, the employees can only resort to the failed “FAA Safety Hotline”, then LASTLY the IG -- after all other “safety” programs fail.
In other cases, instead of an early and honest acknowledgement of a company’s err, combined with the local-FAA’s lack of oversight, both the regulator and the operator were too quick to assert that the err was instead merely a human err of an airline’s employee. Both the regulator and the operator joined together to reassure others that their local “system” was fine (while failing to correct the minor system-err).
For an example of SW-Region’s oversight, consider the Findings #34, #35, and #36 in AAR-01/02 (pg 169 bottom): neither the local regulator, nor the managers at that airline, were capable of discerning the specific points of non-compliance inside the operator’s “system” (eg, an erroneous or falsified “standard” included in manuals).