A pilot fails to notice a warning light for two critical aircraft systems and conducts a takeoff. A crew ignores company procedures on a repositioning flight. A maintenance technician fails to move a work stand prior to towing.
Are these one-time events or do they represent a trend?
Before we can explore what safety issues may be trending in business aviation, knowing how and where the trends are identified is important. Most operators have begun to collect data as part of their safety programs. To get valuable information that will help reduce operational risk, we must see data analysis as one element of the whole. A safety management system (SMS) anchors and brings all elements of the safety program together. Each element of a system works only when all pieces are interacting with one another. One cannot exist without the others. Therefore, we must begin our story of what’s trending with the fact that SMS is trending.
When the business aviation community gathers in Novembe…
