Hi Flann1gan,
On the other, the Canadian Pilot's Association who say that traditional monitoring and audit tools that have worked well are no longer being used and that TC are pushing paper rather than inspecting aircraft.
'Traditional monitoring' through 'operational surveillance',as well as the 'yearly audit schedule' and when required through 'special or additional audits' will continue.There will always remain a need to combine outcome based legislation with compliance based legislation,due to the regulatory and legal laws and rule sets that surrounding aviation.To my knowledge, no Regulator has canned audits completely,but the SMS does put more accountability for safety back onto the operator,and rightly so.
Any comments by any pilots or pilot associations stating that traditional auditing has been abandoned is a load of crap.
In actual reality,TC made mistakes initially with the implementation process of SMS by jumping the gun and implementing SMS without adequately trained Inspectors/resourcing.The Auditor Generals report gave TC a bit of a hiding for this,but as with any new process or act of legislation,there is always a few teething issues.
In New Zealand,SMS is embedded pretty well,and has been in place for some time.
In Australia,SMS is currently being implemented as we speak.Australia learned from TC's mistake and employed Safety Systems experts into their regulatory Inspectorate well ahead of time,and are leaders in the implementation process. However some issues are arising down there due to a change in CEO who initially did not understand or support the Safety Systems people,and in the meantime around 35% of these Safety Systems people have since resigned and moved on,leaving a large gap within the Regulator.
The FAA,well,they feel they have the best knowledge and processes of all nations,but in reality they are miles behind the eight ball,well behind New Zealand,Canada,Australia and even one or two third world countries in some aspects of the SMS.They have been actively consulting everywhere so as to put together an implementation program,and to their defence,taking things a little slower and more methodically,after all,the USA has a huge industry to oversight.
As for SMS and the scare mongering going on,it is quite interesting that so many within aviation have given SMS a complete bollocking and act as if it is some huge monster that will send their organisation broke,not to mention how evil it is.Strange considering the mining and petroleum industries,large in size of their own accord,adopted SMS into their structures decades ago,and they remain some of the safest industries on the planet.....