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Aviation News Item: 05839
2nd Mar 2010
ARGUS Finds Deficiencies in SMS & ERP Readiness
Source: fly-corporate.com
 ARGUS has released its annual SMS Audit Results Report. Each year the company audits a significant number of private and commercial business aircraft flight operations and compiles the results into one single report.
The 2009 SMS Audit Results report focuses on areas of Safety Management Systems (SMS) and Emergency Response Planning, which were found by auditors to have the highest number of deficiencies.
"Safety is not a destination. It is a constantly changing, evolving and developing journey," said ARGUS President and CEO, Joseph Moeggenberg. "It is my hope that through these efforts, ARGUS will help aircraft operators improve their own SMS programs and continue this sharing of information with others."
The report is based on the findings of a total of 61 audits completed during the period from 1 January 2009 to December 2009. It examines both SMS and Emergency Response Planning, and identifies the areas that flight departments are most challenged by, and provides recommendations regarding industry best practices.
Findings include:
- 28% of the 61 operators audited had a weakness in the area of Next-of-Kin notification and family assistance planning under the Emergency Response Program (ERP).
- A vast majority of the findings point to a deficient Internal Evaluation Program (IEP), which would be needed to uncover latent process or program deficiencies within operations and maintenance focus areas before they become causal factors in an accident or incident.
Report recommendations include:
- Designate and provide the Safety Manager with formal SMS training. The organization should provide for SMS indoctrination training to all personnel on an initial and recurring basis.
- Revise the General Operations Manual (GOM) to include safety manager duties and responsibilities. Eliminate inconsistencies between SMS manual and GOM.
- The operator should implement a risk assessment process to evaluate risks from root cause to mitigation to follow-up to determine effectiveness of the mitigation solutions.
A copy of the complete report can be found here.
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