Premium On Safety - Issue 14, 2014 - 5

SmS CoRNER

Safety Culture

Say It Enough Times...

Separating safety into pieces
Safety can be broken down into two areas:
physical and people. The physical aspect is
more traditional, more obvious, and easier to
rectify. The people piece can be more complex, less obvious, and trickier to deal with,
primarily because it can be more personal
and messier to approach and resolve.
PHySICAL

-Objects
-PrOcedures/checklists

PEOPLE

-YOurself
-Others

Physical
Objects
Beginning with the most obvious:
* Spills on the floor or on the counter
* Uncovered cables in aisles

Goldilocks
By BRUCE LANDSBERG

By DR. SHARI fRISINGER

Safety culture: The underlying threat
We know that safety should be our top priority. Many flight departments have 'safety'
or 'safety culture' in their vision or mission
statements. We have safety officers, safety
minutes, safety moments, safety surveys,
safety management systems, safety procedures, safety diagrams, safety departments,
and safety committees. We are reminded
about safety when we walk into the hangar,
into the cockpit, into the aircraft, and into our
cars. We have safety tests, safety assessments, and safety rankings. We can even promote our "Just Culture" atmosphere. We do
indeed have a culture of safety. Or do we?
Say it enough times and you'll believe it to
be true (interesting how your mind can create
a false reality). Say it enough times and it will
lose its original meaning (what does safety
culture actually mean?). Say it enough times
and it will become mindless and rote (just
like signing your name). Say it enough times
and complacency will seep in (you have not
had an accident/incident and are 'safe,' so
why should you change?). Say it enough times
and people will stop listening to whatever
follows (how many times have you heard and
immediately tuned out a safety sermon?).
Is safety 'in the eye of the beholder'?

ASI mESSAGE

* Uncovered liquids (coffee cups, water
glasses, etc.)
* Towing the aircraft (do you have
enough people, or are you working
off 'acceptable'?)
How about some not quite as obvious:
* Leaving the tow bar on the aircraft 'for
just a few minutes'
* Towing the aircraft with only the driver,
or the driver and one other person
(regardless of experience)
* Putting pieces of equipment or
replacement parts in an area where
they can fall onto the floor or otherwise
get damaged
* Work or arrangements not documented,
leaving no paper trail
Clearly, all of the above can cost re-work or
clean-up time. They can also cost real money
ranging from several dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. It takes an awareness of the
hazard, the commitment to follow procedures
and the proper mental attitude to prevent
these and other types of mishaps.
Procedures, checklists, and other
documentation
You have one manual that supersedes all
other manuals; the manual that is (or can
be) dog-eared from accessing its know-all
information. You have an operations manual,
a SMS manual, a trip planning manual, a personnel/HR manual, a training-tracking manual, and/or a manual (or two or three) for each
of your aircraft. You have a procedure for
weekend support, off-hours support, reporting incidents, traveling overseas, reporting
safety hazards, and/or transferring or sharing
information. You have a checklist for repairs,
trip planning, assessing fatigue, passenger
details, and vacation coverage.
There appears to be a manual, a procedure, or a checklist for every task imaginable.
Why then are these not followed? Are they
incorrect and need to be updated? Are they
no longer applicable to the task? Are there
steps missing that need to be added? Or
have you performed the task so frequently
that you have relied on your own memory and
bypassed any double-checking?
There are other physical safety hazards in
your work place; I challenge you to look at

It's not the
first time-
and certainly
won't be the
last-that
someone slides off the end of a moderately short but adequate runway.
When a Citation CJ3 slid off the
end of a 4,000-foot runway into a
nearby golf course's water trap it
was an expensive mistake from a
hardware perspective, but fortunately there were no injuries (ntsb.
gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_
id=20140513X45913&key=1).
Remember how critical energy management is to safe landings; it's good practice to be on speed, on altitude, and on
the center line, no matter how long or
wide the runway is. I refer to this as the
Goldilocks parameters: Not too much,
not too little-just right.
Runway length according to the
flight manual was sufficient for the aircraft. There was a displaced threshold
of about 350 feet; even with that, if
Goldilocks was in the cockpit everything
should have worked. This is also assuming little or no runway slope, no standing
water or other contamination, and little
or no tailwind. If Goldilocks isn't in your
cockpit beware the wolf. ASI's "Takeoffs
and Landings" video series (airsafetyinstitute.org/safetyvideos) made possible by the Canadian Owners and Pilots
Association and the Donner Canadian
Foundation, covers short field landings,
normal takeoffs, determining an abort
point, crosswind landings, stabilized
approaches, and the base-to-final turn.
A great opportunity for pilots of all levels to hone these important skills.
What more, if anything, should we be
doing to raise awareness?
Safe Flights...

Bruce Landsberg
President, AOPA Foundation

(continued on page 6)
5

http://ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20140513X45913&key=1 http://ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20140513X45913&key=1 http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/safetyvideos http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/safetyvideos

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