When will airlines start preparing safety cases?

[Rigga]

I think Shell Management's complaint equates to the same issue in the perceived lack of ISO9001 in the airline indutry too -

ISO9001 just doesn't fit into what happens to an airline either. Sure, some administrative areas can make it fit and do operate on an ISO system, but it's essentially a production or manufacturing system that can't really cope with the intricacies of airline maintenance without getting complicated, costing time (and yes, money too) that is needed to meet timelines.

In my view a good SMS is far better than an SCS, it is flexible to the type of operation and easier to maintain. An SMS can be as complicated or as simple as the operator requires.

To be honest, an SCS is just another system that depends on the indivudual working it, and the managers reponses to it. It is no better and no worse than an SMS.

This is not about a lack of an airlines/operators safety for personel, pax, property and the environment - but about the use for a reasonable method of controlling what is going on for each company, being aware of the real issues and avoiding or mitigating their effects effectively until a permanent fix can be made, if at all possible.

Maybe ICAO will make it a mandated system, but only when it been proven to work - when there's no more ships sinking, oil fires or nuclear leaks, for instance.

[Rigga]

"The chhanged ICAO annex do require the management of hazards and prioritising them needs to be done on a risk basis."

...and thats exactly what goes on!

Full agreement at last that the addition of another level of beaurocracy isn't needed.

...the end of this thread then?

[john_tullamarine]

ISO9001 just doesn't fit into what happens to an airline either.

Can't agree with that observation.

A 9000 management system can be very simple or highly complex according to the needs of the entity (and the understanding of the folk putting it together). Problems arise when the activity tries to map itself to a pre-ordained system (failure in the making) rather than developing a compliant system to suit the requirement .. not much different to the basic philosophical problems in aircraft design, I suggest. If the operation basically is sound, the bulk of 9000 considerations will ALREADY be in place.

but it's essentially a production or manufacturing system that can't really cope

9000 started life in Industry to address the problems and difficulties associated with customer audit. It is just a codification into a commonsense system of important considerations when it comes to "ways of doing things".

I'm involved with a high end corporate operation and the whole engineering and maintenance activity is 9000 compliant - nothing in that causes us any significant problems. Coincidentally, I have been involved extensively with design and manufacturing in previous lives and the same applied.

without getting complicated, costing time (and yes, money too) that is needed to meet timelines.

Unless you are making paddlepop stick models with a pot of glue in your backyard, all activities involve resource costs. The system need only be as complicated as you want to make it .. complexity for complexity's sake is a waste of time.

[Piltdown Man]

Why does the airline industry fail to adopt them after 10 years even though the nuclear, rail and ANSP industries and the RAF have all adopted them?

The industry may not have adopted Shell's onerous approach but will have instead implemented their own, simpler, easier to understand and more effective procedures. Fancy diagrams, long buzzwords and management-speak phrases and other such marvellous things does not improve safety. If Also the processes, if followed in the way the article suggests, will add little to safety but very nicely nail some poor sod who might step out of line. An outcome hardly conducive to safety as too many will start fiddling (or shredding) paperwork or stories. Additionally, the departments who cook up this guff are consuming scarce resource which could be put to better use, like QAR data processing, training, communications etc. Safety programs do not have to have bloody diagrams to work.

And have you ever wondered why not everyone jumps to bid for Shell's outsourced corporate aviation work? The article only explains half of the hoops a bidder has to hop through. I understand that you have to buy into this process to be able to bid for the work. So I'm sure many companies decline to even read the bid offer let alone put any effort into it (I know of a couple for a start).

On a more positive note, I'd suggest that the main reason Shell's aviation department has an enviable safety record is that it has well trained and above all, very experienced operators. With or without your "safety" guff, it would still be safe.

PM

[Brian Abraham]

Shell Management, with your supposed contacts you should have an insight into what happened with the Nigerian Puma ditching. When might we see a factual report of cause etc? Had it been any airline the general public, let alone aircrew, would already have a fair notion as to what happened. This one seems to sit under a cloak of secrecy, not even people within the company have any idea, despite an excellent video on Youtube.

[Brian Abraham]

If only every Bass Strait occurrence was in the public domain eh my friend

You are quite right, and I did whilst there, in some small way, to attempt a more open acknowledgment of cause and effect, but to no avail. Lack of compliance was the name of the game, as with all oil companies.

Everyone who needs to know about this Super Puma (not Puma) ditching does BTW

Seems to be a pretty closed shop. As I previously said, even some of the company offshore pilots don't know. So what happened with the Nigerian SUPER Puma? I have my own ideas, having been party to a what I think is a similar scenario, only did not get quite so far through the layers of swiss cheese.

And no more of the condescending "my friend". That I ain't, but never say never.

[PBL]

I find the thread a bit odd, although the topic interests me. Indeed, professionally I have quite a lot to do with safety cases and safety case requirements.

The subject is very broad, so here just a couple of pertinent comments.

First, Safety Cases are by no means the province of the oil and gas industry. Safety Cases are required by many national and international standards for various parts of safety-critical system lifecycles, under this or other names. For example, the international standard on functional safety for systems - any systes- which include electrics. electronics or programmable electronics, IEC 61508, requires a written document equivalent to a safety case. They are used extensively in UK MoD technical projects, and a recent set of observations on their use and misuse occurs in the report of Charles Haddon-Cave into the Nimrod accident and the history of the technical developments which led to it. That report illustrates quite clearly that safety cases are not a panacea, but that they can be misused just as any other tool. My colleagues at Adelard have a SW tool, ASCE, for safety case preparation, which is the result of nearly two decades of work and which is increasingly being used by UK MoD contractors. For a good introduction to the technicalities of safety case preparation, the Adelard Safety Case Pages are amongst the very best available. (GenghisE, that is, John_T, I think (again), I hope you agree with me that this is an important reference, and not a commercial citation.)

The quick answer to "why don't airlines use safety cases?" is that the aviation industry has its own operational equivalents. In the case of an airline, it is the documentation required to obtain and maintain its AOC. ATC organisations increasingly use safety cases, labelled as such. Airplane manufacturers produce equivalent written documentation during certification.

So on one view, it is just not true that airlines don't use safety cases. They just don't call them that and it may be that the required arguments for safety in operations are spread over many documents rather than just one. Whether that is a good idea or not rather depends on how big the documentation is, and on whether the existing regime more or less works satisfactorily. Looking at the safety records of many of the world's better airlines, one would have to conclude that it does work pretty well.

All this is of course independent of what someone self-identifying as "Shell Management" might write on an anonymous public forum. My guess is that heshe is a poseur, but the issues raised, though provocatively, include good ones to which there are answers. More publicity about safety cases is in any case a good thing, and you know what they say - no publicity is bad publicity!

PBL

[Genghis the Engineer]

(GenghisE, I hope you agree with me that this is an important reference, and not a commercial citation.)

I do, but am not a moderator in this bit of Pprune - I only moderate flight test (out of fascination for the subject) and ground ops (out of public duty because somebody had to, and there weren't any ground handlers amongst the Pprune mods).

G

[Treg]

Australian regulator info page on safety case's

http://www.nopsa.gov.au/document/Qan...%20Context.pdf

May offer some differing perspective

[SNS3Guppy]

This is something the airline industry doesn´t do.

You present a paragraph waffling on about realistic flight simulation, then make the statement that the airline industry doesn't do this? Clearly you have no idea whence you speak.

You assert that the airline industry doesn't do realistic risk assessment? Clearly you have no concept regarding that which you attempt to speak.

You assert that no case-based scenarios and prepared responses exist? Can you really be that clueless?

I don't think so. Someone pegged you correctly early-on. You're here as a troll.

[forget]

SM. Could you please override your obvious modesty and tell us who you are? And please don't claim that you work for Shell.

[SNS3Guppy]

I am a highly experienced aviation safety consultant and safety auditor with over 40 years in the aviation industry. If acilitated and directed the development of thea complete hazard analysis for operating and maintaining aircraft before ICAO had even heard of hazard management. I am currently busy assessing corporate culture, developing assessments for continuing airworthiness of ageing aircraft, life cycle cost models and aircraft replacement strategies.

No you're not.

You're not familiar with the industry language that already addresses the issues you raise. This information is already a regular part of training, and is old hat. That you're not familiar with this clearly demonstrates your fraud.

[PBL]

On the basis of what the contributor calling himself Shell Management has written, I wouldn't advise anyone interested in safety management to pay him much attention.

If we want to talk about the assurance of safety, including the construction of safety cases, let's go ahead. I keep coming back here because of contributions from others, but those contributions appear mostly (still) to be reactions to what he has said. Please let's not orient the discussion solely around his commentary, because it won't get us anywhere useful.

PBL

[sox6]

Shell Managemnt is known for being arogant, demanding, over confident in their own knowledge, with a tendancy to lecture (both the PPRuNe callsign and as collective group). Shell's recent high risk behaviour in Nigeria shows that much of their bluster is not backed with action.

PBL is right that the future of safety management is important. What is ironic is that the relative lack of interest here AND some of the responses do seem to reinforce one of SM's apparent points, that the aviation industry does sometimes seem to be a little too smug in resting on its laurels.

[Brian Abraham]

He who knows, and knows he knows, is wise ---- follow him (JT, Old Smokey, 212man)

He who knows not, and knows he knows not, is worthy ---- teach him (most of us)

but

He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, is a fool ---- avoid him (Shell Management, SSG)

[PBL]

SH, I dearly wish you would say something worth discussing on this most important issue, and try to discuss it as if you were interested in resolving it.

PBL

[SNS3Guppy]

Brian thanks for your valuable contribution to this safety debate.

He's contributed more in post than you'll contribute, by far. You've been called out. Slink away.

SH, I dearly wish you would say something worth discussing on this most important issue, and try to discuss it as if you were interested in resolving it.

He or she really can't. SM has already revealed that he or she knows nothing about the industry, or safety management for that matter.

I'm only familiar with one poster who keeps returning with new identities from time to time, posting the same kind of language as SM, who proves conclusively every time from the language that they use, that they know absolutely nothing about their subject matter. This poster, "shell management," is that same person. Whether he calls himself ssg, shooter, tank whatever, or any of the other names under which he or she keeps crawling back, it's the same troll, incapable of making an intelligent post, with nothing of substance to offer, and a refusal to learn.

[forget]

Here's one back. Do a Google on "Shell fined" with quotation marks. 4,010 hits. There'll be many duplications but even so 4,000+

Some very interesting tales.

“It is impossible to reconcile Shell’s continuing participation in price fixing cartels and other unlawful market manipulation activity, with its claimed business principles pledging honesty, integrity and transparency in all of Shell’s dealings.”

PS. Even better, these guys have done all the work.

Mission – Royal Dutch Shell plc .com

[Helen49]

Unless there is an intent and culture of safety at the 'top' of the organisation, all the systems, documents, safety cases etc in the world will not help you. If the culture is there, the simplest of documents and systems will go a long way towards enabling a safe operation. Simple!

Helen

[PEI_3721]

Aviation safety stalled.

SM, within this thread, are you suggesting that this is due to the lack of SMS, or is SMS proposed as the solution?

Stalled – at what level. The fatal accident rate appears to remain low, hull losses similar, but at a higher rate. Of concern (Boeing Stat Sum) is that the overall accident rate shows a slight increase, but all of these values are ‘relatively’ low. Naturally, rates depend on how they are defined, and that their relative success (acceptability) depends on what minimum might be achievable (ALARP).

If the very low accident rate is an indication of an ‘almost totally safe transport system’ - The paradoxes of almost totally safe transportation systems (Amalberti), then the safety task has to adapt from improvement to containment.

SMS might target those areas with less than the general standard of safety - improvement, but those operations which have achieved an acceptable level should focus on safety programs for containment, if not already done so. Will SMS contain what is already achieved; not necessarily so?

A counter view is that SMS auditing and monitoring will help containment, but only if the key safety items are identified. Many audits (SMS activities) only see what is looked at: – in how many of the recent accidents were the major contributors identifiable by conventional SMS auditing – beware hindsight bias.
Instead of looking for hazards, we should look for the changes in operation; look at the difference between how the tasks are undertaken vs how management thinks they are (perhaps these are the real hazards).
Improving safety culture is a good idea, but it is a lengthy process and success is not assured.

Many interpretations of SMS see it as an idealized concept (ICAO SMM Chapter 1); it is guidance to be built upon.
Many airlines have good systems; these are containing the accident rate at low levels. The important item which has to be identified - avoided - is the ‘big one’.
Thus why not look at the successes in the industry, how the successful (safe) operators achieve containment both with management and in practice at the workface, as opposed to how the regulators think that safety should be achieved in concept