Many aviation organizations claim to have a healthy safety culture, including a just culture. Some organizations are correct in their assessments, which have been verified objectively by internal and external measures. In other cases, however, organizations may think they have a healthy safety culture, but in fact, they are way off the mark. This may not be an intentional misdiagnosis, but rather an assumption based solely on metrics such as a low accident/incident rates and/or a lack of safety issues being reported on a regular basis. It is easy to see the problem with this way of thinking.
For an organization to claim that safety is in its DNA, the organization must go further than just checking boxes for compliance. Safety should be “the way business is done,” and — most importantly — it should not require any additional effort or expense beyond the compliance requirements. That being said, it’s important to differentiate between a paper safety management system …
