Says Accident Investigators And Safety Regulators Should Take A Hard Look

A closer examination of management and management systems in aviation organizations is a key to further improving air safety.

Management systems should be proactively targeted by both accident investigators and the safety regulator.

The call for in-depth scrutiny of the management of airlines and other air operators was made by CASA chief executive officer, Bruce Byron, in a speech to the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.

 Byron said accident investigators and CASA may need to bring in people with management expertise even if they have no aviation experience.

"Our people have a lot of good technical skills and experience, and so do you," Byron told the accident investigators.

"But where do we stand when we push the envelope beyond the immediate technical issues associated with an accident and start to get involved in an organization’s management processes.

"In my experience with large organizations, particularly where they have a duty of care for the safety of people, I have seen evidence of potential deficiencies in management decision-making.

"This is nothing new, but we need to be confident we have the skills to objectively review management processes and procedures that may be somewhat removed from the technical fields with which we are most comfortable.

"We need to be proactive in targeting, for example, management systems."

Byron said scrutiny of management was a real issue for CASA as new regulations were being drafted that would require the implementation of safety management systems by air operators.

He told the accident investigators another important issue was making sure the results of crash investigations are actively used to improve safety.

"Most importantly, it is vital that all the good material that you produce does not fall into some electronic black hole or database – without being used by the decision makers in the system.

"Your information needs to be constantly trended, assessed and compared with data from other sources – not every decade, not every year, but all the time."

FMI: http://casa.gov.au/corporat/ceo/04-08-31.htm