Safety culture is seen as a pillar of aviation safety and is a cornerstone in both the International Civil Aviation Organization’s and the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA’s) safety management system (SMS) models. But what does this mean in practical terms? For aviation organizations, is there something credible, tangible and manageable they can work with, or is this simply meant to be an inspirational goal?
In European air traffic management (ATM), 2001 and 2002 were particularly bad years. The runway collision at Milan Linate Airport in 2001 was followed by the Überlingen midair collision the next year. Both accidents were seen as having a significant safety culture component, and so Eurocontrol took the lead in developing a safety culture approach for air navigation service providers (ANSPs). Initially it borrowed from the nuclear power sector, which had developed its own safety culture approach following the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in Ukraine in 198…
