SMS and Canadian Aviation Safety
 

There are major concerns about the introduction of SMS and hence a reduction in oversight by Transport Canada. The following website introduces the matter:

https://mail.unsw.edu.au/owa/redir.a...k%2flinks.html

If the Hon Justice Moshansky is worried so should we be.

need a log in ID for the site.

Comes up ok for the site, just tried it. Are you signed up for ppune? This may be the problem. Am disappointed so few Canadians have responded.

The reason no one has responded is it DOESN'T come up OK from here. As the previous poster said, it requires a password and log on (and, yes, I'm logged on to pprune. And I've tried it several times since yestarday). I would very much like to read it, and possibly respond.

4Greens...

The link is directing the user to the mail server at the University of New South Wales. A UNSW login and password is required to access the server.

However, I believe that the information you are trying to share is from the CBC Fifth Estate program that dhc2widow posted in another thread:

RIDING ON RISK | Originally aired September 25, 2009 on CBC-TV - Related Links

If someone sends you a link in an email message and you copy it from within the message, the link will be a copy of the reference that goes through the email server. To avoid this, click on the link to open up the target web page and then copy the web page address from the address bar. Use this in your forum posting to allow others to see it.

Sorry about the link address, just a stupid old pilot! Still worth following up, its really important.

If I were a 703 owner / operator who wanted to operate my company with disregard to the rules and wanted to be able to intimidate my pilots and engineers into doing whatever I wanted them to do even knowing it is against the law I would love SMS.

Hell it even beats paying bribes to government officials to turn their heads to wrongdoing.:ok:

Pencil whipping paper work is real easy.

I have just read on another forum a job ad for a Beaver Float Pilot. In the list of requirements it states: “......and accept the SMS system.” It would be interesting to know exactly what system the owner is expecting his new employee to accept.
As said previously, those ethical operators who are doing things the right way do not need SMS, while it gives the chancers free rein to manipulate it and impose even more abuse on staff while covering up safety issues. Never put the fox in charge of the hen house!

As has being said before the good operators will remain that way, the pond scum won't change either.

That said SMS offers a real advantage to the good guys if they think out of the box.

The problem to date is the public really has no clue with who they are flying with. (I should say pretend to have no clue, in a lot a places people know exactly who they hire.) The cover is everyone presumes the government is making it safe and they are all the same. The real issue is getting the public to recognize that you get what you pay for.


If say a group of air taxi operators banded together and said - we are going to create a "club" that excludes the low life's. This club will be open to all who meet the standards which you could wrap into an SMS

Standards would include things like , pilot pay, pilot security to refuse a flight, a filled out w&B with a signed dispatch log for every flight, a MEL that has being updated since they built the beaver, etc etc. This would be backed by a third party audit like DNV, NBAA etc. The audit files would be available to all.

If this "band" were really together they would self insure with a back up high deductible policy. Run a good shop for a few years and reinvest the premiums and you will get to a point where you don't even need the back up policy. Regardless of the operator making money the insurance company always makes money. Nothing scares an insurance company like self insurance.

Once this is in place you have to let the public and the companies that charter that hey - we are brand X, we offer all this, when you look at prices ask the low ballers what they offer.

I would make it clear that we pay pilots well. Most people are not going to get on a plane with a pilot paid grocery bagger wages when the other guy pays his pilots a living wage

I say most because you want to cream the premium customers. Reputable lodge operators, contractors and individuals with a brain will pay extra. No one goes to the cheap surgeon, why fly with the cheap pilot?

The biggest obstacle is right now any one can say we are TC certified which means very little. Create a quality brand and build a reputation. You will never change the minds of some, the old timers will stick with so and so cause he always gets it in. A well designed website spelling out why "we" are better will pull in new customers who have never hired a plane and start to make some charters re think. No one wants to be the person that hires the plane that crashes.

SMS represents a big change and change creates opportunities. It will not happen overnight but it will happen.

20driver

As long as the shell game played by TCCA and the Minister of Transport is allowed to be played Canadian aviation will remain where it is, just another third world mentality.

The answer lies in a new organization of engineers and pilots that answer only to their own management team.

Screw TC.

Screw the Minister of Transport.

Screw all the organizations that already exist because they have changed nothing at the small charter level.

If companies will not follow the rules already in force they will go out of business if no one will work for them.

A well organized association of engineers and pilots can have the power to change the system

Justice Moshansky was interviewed for this recent article in The Walrus - The Walrus Fly At Your Own Risk

It is far more in-depth and informative than was the Fifth Estate's piece.

I believe Justice Moshansky would agree.

Would someone explain what is SMS?

Thanks, Brian.

Would someone explain what is SMS?

To put it in its most simple form SMS ( Safety Management System. ) is a way for TCCA to unload responsibility for aviation safety in Canada and put the responsibility on the individual company.

For companies who already have a culture of safety it will work.

For companies who skirt or ignore the rules it will also work, however it will work in their favor as they need only play the game of pencil whip the paper work to show TC that they are working within the rules and they are free to operate any way they choose.

If you work for such a company you have two choices.

Do what ever the company asks you to do regardless of the legalities.

Or find another job.

Anything else you would like to know about SMS?

Ok...notwithstanding Mr. Ellworths obvious love of ALL things to do with Transport Canada, would anyone be able to give an unbiased and non editorial version of the program? Thanks...

In very simple terms, SMS is a method of pro-active safety - a company comes up with a plan as to how they will deal with safety issues as they arise, in order to pro-actively implement safety-related system changes before they increase in severity to incidents/accidents.

It's an excellent idea and being mandated by ICAO. However, IMHO, for SMS to work (besides being tailored to different sectors/operator sizes) it depends on two things.

1) Continuing traditional oversight methods during implementation and until fully adopted and proven results are seen.
2) Guaranteed (legislated) whistleblower protections for both public and private sector workers.

Transport Canada is doing neither of these things, and that is why many people are outraged.

4Greens: Did you by chance get a copy of an email sent by Justice Moshansky with the subject Re - Walrus Magazine, November 2009 - "Fly at your own risk" article'? The original was addressed to "Kirsten" and had a PDF copy of the "Walrus" article attached?

Deleted message

SMS gets TC off the Liability Hook
 

There have been lawsuits where TC has been sued for lax regulatory supervision, perhaps because inspectors who had concerns about an operator were ordered to leave the operator alone.

With SMS, there's no more inspection and it's left entirely to the operator.

So how do you sue TC any more?

Bureaucracy protects itself QED

For: dhc2widow; got the email ok. Its why I started this post.

Dear Chuck...
At no time was any accusation leveled at you, and in addition you are welcome to voice your opinion. Your quite obvious issues with TC are coming through loud and clear. I simply wanted (and thanks Kirsten) a reply without an editorial slant. SMS seems to have many faces and in order for one to make an informed opinion, I think it would be important to gather as much information as possible...how is that wrong?
Thanks to Grizzled for saying what I will not.