A pragmatic approach to the limitations of safety management systems in aviation

Abstract

Commercial aviation systems are increasingly stretched to their capacity while existing Safety Management Systems (SMS) do not live up to our expectations as higher efficiency standards are taxing human resources, higher competition levels are reducing the potential for collaboration and the sharing of risk data, and technological advances are making systems difficult to operate and re-design. Aviation systems become intractable, defying SMSs that could support prediction and control, and hence, are not amenable to compliance models of regulation. Instead, it is argued here that this ability can be developed by applying a pragmatic safety approach based on the identification of sixteen limitations of SMSs across aviation systems, regardless of the theoretical perspectives and safety techniques adopted. A variety of data collection methods have been employed such as, analysis of incidents, interviews with safety practitioners, participation in group discussions and consideration of safety training. The proposed sixteen limitations of SMS can be useful in addressing these new challenges in the aviation environment by stressing the need for a new perspective in aviation risk governance.