Safety hazards
 

Dear all,

I'm writing an article about safety management in aviation. I'm interested in knowing what specific safety hazards you as crew perceive. I'm also running the same kind of investigation with airline management. The difference may very well be an interesting topic for my article.
I appriciate your input on this!

Best regards, Nick

Nick, I was expecting a rush of posts aligned with the threat and error management (TEM) teaching of CRM; the physical hazards of aviating, etc, but there are none so far.

It would be interesting to see how our peers see hazards; do these relate to the operation, experience, location, training, nationality, etc. Also, it could be enlightening to see the expected differing views from management.

However, my suggestion would be for you to look beyond the standard TEM view of threats – safety hazards, and consider that humans in the industry are the most significant threat. The human fallibility both in operations and management, individually and as a team, due to personal attitudes, susceptibility to error, and their working environment, are just a few of the hazards. Such a study could give a unique insight of how individual crews and management view people as a hazard in the safety equation.
Something similar was undertaken in Australia by Braithwaite (Attitude or Latitude?), I recall that there were differences between civil and military pilots and some surprises when comparing hazards with the ATC viewpoint.
Good luck with what could be an interesting quest.

In the latest TEM training a threat is an event or situation outside the influence of the flight crew but needs management by the flight crew to maintain safety margins. They can include latent conditions but generally are more immediate issues.

Here is a (non - exhaustive) list of threats (hazards) experienced by airline crews on a daily basis.

ATC Threats
Challenging instructions / ATC errors
Language difficulties
Heavy traffic
TCAS events

Environmental Threats
Adverse WX
Terrain
Airport Conditions

Aircraft Threats
Dispatch deviations / MELs
Malfunctions
Automation events / anomalies

Crew Support Threats
Dispatch events / errors
Ground crew events / errors
Maintenance events / errors

Operational Threats
Time Pressures
Irregular Operations
Radio congestion / poor reception

Cabin Threats
Passenger events (e.g. unruly pax)
Cabin events
Flight attendant errors

As I said the list is not exhaustive.

Best wishes
PJ

@alf5071h and @propjet,

Thanks for your input! It is indeed my intention to identify those threats that management doesn't see. I think that after the introduction of CRM some 25 jrs ago. All pilots are very much aware of their own human factors related issues, but what has been done on a management level? Management in general perceives aviation threats to be 1) minimum risk 0,78 accidents per million flights, so it can happen but the chance is small. 2) legal action from the authorities, so compliance to regs is importand. 3) there are more factors i'm sure.

Go on guy's I learning from this!

Thanks, Nick

Hi Nick,
I've sometimes found that it is the people at the frontline within an organisation who are most aware of the latent conditions the organisation harbours.
For this reason, you may wish to try the following, Do up a simple questionnaire (or verbally) ask your co-workers the following scenario:
"If I were to tell you that one of our aircraft has just crashed, what do you think would be the likely causes or scenario?"
Ideally this should prompt the respondent to define the hazards they perceive in their workplace.

Good luck

safety and QA
 

Nick

In my experience I feel that, although it does not appear so when we are flying for a UK airline (or a European airline in general) , "modern management" are much more aware of the problems - hazards than they are prepared, in many cases, to admit to.

It therefore takes a very strong and experienced flight safety manager to point them out and keep stressing the point until action is taken. It also requires the proper hierarchical set up to ensure that he has direct access to the management board to ensure that any possibly embarrassing loop holes in the middle managhement's strategy do not become a distraction.

To a point we are well protected by the JAA but the concern is that not all operators (worldwide) are bound by JAR-OPS. The problem is that these operators fly in the same skies as us and bring with them or create hazards that are outside the controls of our management or evenm our regulator(s). Because these operators are only regulated through ICAO there is very little effective auditing and minimum ICAO standards suffice in many cases.

Good luck with your quest

Diehard