SAFETY MANAGERS: BEYOND THE SAFETY PROGRAM

If you were born on an airliner in the US in this decade and never got off you would encounter your first fatal accident when you were 2300 years of age and you would still have a 29% chance of being one of the survivors.

— Les Lautman, Safety Manager Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, 1989.

As stated in the Commercial Aviation Safety book, management must provide strong, demonstrable, and visible leadership if the safety program is to succeed. An airline safety manager is in charge of delegating the authority, setting up the organizational structure, and allocating resources to make the safety program work. The safety program is a document with guidelines of how the airline safety will be driven. After the safety program is done, the safety manager have the responsibility to make this program succeed. Among other things, the safety manager needs to attend safety meetings, publicly recognize good safety practices and results, participate in site safety audits and inspections and enforce policies, procedures, and programs.

In general, the Aviation Safety Manager is responsible for:

• Maintenance, review and revision of an Aviation Safety Program;

• Providing timely advice and assistance on aviation safety matters to the Division Administrator and Director of Flight Operations;

• Maintaining a reporting system for accidents, incidents and hazards;

• Distributing aviation safety information;

• Conducting regular aviation safety audits;

• Providing aviation safety training to new personnel;

• Assisting as necessary in conducting accident and incident investigations;

• Maintaining an aviation safety analysis program.

• Developing and maintaining a pre-accident plan.

If all this responsibilities fall into the Aviation Safety Manager, this person must be the leader, teacher, boss, investigator and at the same time, be prepared to respond by himself in situations that require him/her to perform.