Risk Assessments

[Quintin Frost]

If I look at the manuals I see that a risk assessment is required when you plan to do any flights that is different from the norm. This makes sense but my question is who must do the RA.

The safety manager / Officer or the crew that are supposed to go and do the job? Am I correct if I say in short the crew will do the RA and the Safety department will then work with the crew and Ops to review and ensure all mitigating actions is in place to reduce the risks identified by the crew before the flight takes place.

[LookingForAJob]

In my view it will depend on the rules that require the RA and the operator's management system.

But the simple answer regardless of the background is that the people doing it must be competent for the task. That's not meant to be flippant - depending on the activity being assessed it's quite possible that the operating crew do not have the necessary knowledge, either of the operation or of the conduct of a RA. In my experience RAs that are of any value tend to be done by a small but multi-skilled team and led by a facilitator who knows what needs to be done.

[777AV8R]

RA’s are usually completed by the operator’s safety or quality department. The assessment is usually completed using ICAO Doc.9859. The outcome will be as a result of completing he matrices.

[Quintin Frost]

Thanks for the answers, I tend to agree that the Safety and Quality departments need to be involved in the process and there should be a team assessing the outcome. I also do believe that the most effective way of doing this is if the crew involved with that ops must be included to not only make there inputs but also to steer the committee in the direction of there concerns and to ensure that those things also get addressed.

I also do think that the safety and Quality departments don't necessarily always know all the hidden dangers as they are not flying the chopper. They do how ever or should be able to do an RA hence there involvement. So to sum it up I would say team work is very important here as that will ensure all or most bases are covered.

[777AV8R]

True however; in an ideal world, if the crew is going to be involved in doing the risk assessments, they, like the safety/quality department, must be trained in conducting the assessments as well. If the operations contain 'hidden dangers' as you put it, then it would be imperative that all individuals involved in conducting these assessments, be trained in the process. If you want to PM me, feel free as I have conducted numerous RAs during the course of my tenure as the much hated, air safety inspector.

[bluesideoops]

SMS Manager should not conduct the RA for flight ops - it is his responsibility to ensure that the RA exists and has been developed for the purpose with appropriate departments involved. The RA is a tool for the front line staff to use as part of their daily jobs and should be used by them. Over time, the SMS Manager should review the RA's and identify if any changes may warrant a change to the RA (again, with consultation with other departments). Remember, the definition of SMS is Safety Management System - the SMS Manager responsibility is to ensure that there is a system in place and to ensure SMS tools are available. I agree with other comments that the SMS Manager may conducts RAs himself but ordinarily it wouldn't be for a 'coal face' cases. Our pilots have RAs for certain tasks that are more hazardous and they are the ones who complete them IAW their training. Just like implementing corrective actions for audits/incidents etc, the SMS Mgr should never be the 'doer' he should be the co-oridnator, overseer, enabler.......