The aviation industry is the safest it has ever been, but must be improved to handle burgeoning demand. To get there, we must be more predictive and less forensic. Yet, national legal regimes and international guidance to protect safety information are lagging behind global efforts to gather, analyze and share voluntary and mandatory safety disclosures.
Basic safety management systems (SMSs) depend on a climate that is confidential, without fear of retribution. Yet the quantum safety leap envisioned by SMS is imperiled by the lack of legal protection from criminal attack, civil subpoena and administrative misuse.
As vice chair of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) Task Force on Safety Information Protection (SIP), I have worked with Chair Jonathan Aleck of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority and other distinguished professionals for the past two years. We reviewed existing legal and cultural regimes, trouble areas, international guidance and po…
