Future error-tolerant system improvements to airline operations will require a fresh appraisal of voluntary safety programs to ensure they match advances in safety culture and technology, says Timothy Logan, director of safety, Southwest Airlines. He urges the industry and government to come to grips with legacy philosophical errors that today affect how well these programs support safety management systems (SMSs). He presented his paper and answered questions in August during the ISASI 2012 seminar in Baltimore organized by the International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI).
“It’s really important to talk about the state of these programs,” Logan said. “[There’ve] been a lot of things underlying these programs that need to be fixed, [that] need to be rectified for us to have a really good SMS. … For those of us in the safety offices of large operations, our focus is no longer on reacting to hull losses or even serious incidents. Our focus has moved toward preve…
