It has been my unfortunate experience to find SMS in small companies is basically a lip service only.
Nice manuals are written with motherhood statements about how everyone from the CEO down to the cleaner is responsible for safety. A computerised tracking system is set up to report, investigate and acquit anything and everything that is seen as a potential risk.
Quarterly meetings are sometimes held and minutes taken so that the CASA auditors can get a warm, fuzzy feeling that all is sweetness and light.
But somehow only pissant stuff like the occasional duty time bust or coffee spill in the galley finds its way into the SMS.
If something really serious crops up, it is buried. In a former airline (now defunct) we had a major flight control issue with a jet transport aircraft that resulted in a classic rudder hardover event. It was certainly due to dodgy maintenance and exacerbated by the way in which test flights were conducted. The crew did all the right things in reporting it, but the so-called Safety & Security Manager in cahoots with the Chief Operating Officer and a cardboard cut-out non-flying Chief Pilot somehow buried it.
I could give other examples.
Exposed to this culture, pilots eventually treat internal company SMS with contempt.
CRM is similarly treated with contempt by some hardcore old-school types - as evidenced in the CVR pulled from the Misima crash. A pilot may do the course and maybe attempt to incorporate good CRM for a while - for as long as all is going well in their world. Then, when the pressure is on, they revert. CRM training does not necessarily modify one's core personality.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 6th January 2013 at 02:12.