Safety culture in GA.

[Up-into-the-air]

Safety Culture and GA

Safety Culture and GA - The Owner

It is great to see a discussion like this. It should go on more often.

In the development of a safety culture discussion - the aircraft has been blamed, the LAME, the operator, insurance broker, banker, lease provider, CASA, ASA, airport operator, the Chief Pilot, operation of AOC, under/ over [less likely] charging for work, the pilot, etc.

The safety culture in most cases starts by a co-operative of all involved.

If one part of the circle is not present, or broken, as has been recently said "S!!t happens".

The pilot at the end of the day, if an aircraft is OK to go, has the say in the operational matters - load, weather, navigation, route, fuel load, pilot condition, final aircraft condition, length of runway, instructions from operator, instructions from controller and the rest [including what the pilot is up to - eg. DAMP]!!

So the pilot before, during and after the flight has a whole range of things that will affect the safety culture and can drive [at very least - influence] where all this goes in the short and long term. The appropriate use of the Maintenance release is a good start.

Overloading, non-recording of hours, air-frame overloads in flight or operating with a known defect are issues that is very hard for an owner [a very large percentage of aircraft operated in GA are not owned by the operator, but leased or cross-hired in by operators] to detect. The owners rely very much on the operator [and in the end the pilot] to do their job correctly.

Overload Example

We recently have come to hand with information about a series of overloads in an aircraft [in which we have an interest] being overloaded by 2 - 300 kg on a series of missions. This overload was by up to 40% extra to the total ex-fuel load. There have been a series of turbo malfunctions in the aircraft, prior to being "told" of the over-loading's. This has serious issues for the owner in terms of maintenance, over-boosting/ over-use of turbo's etc.

The operator no longer has the aircraft.

Ultimately, the owner has to spend money on things that "go bang", shorten life of components, result in early engine tear-downs etc.

This means resources [money] is diverted from new aircraft, better avionics, updates of internals etc.

The owner/LAME cannot work out why the extra costs occur and "blames" the component supplier/ manufacturer. ATSB becomes involved with the "smoking hole" and another family wonders why.

A good safety culture and fair competition goes a long way to ensuring the mission is achieved and safely. We can do this, but if any individual breaks a link in the chain, we are all on a down hill run.

We must co-operate to achieve these goals and we will have a viable dynamic industry.