Safety Management System

International Collaboration

• Print

• Introduction
• Safety Management International Collaboration Group
• Products
• Additional International Collaboration and Outreach
• Contact Information

Introduction

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requires SMS for the management of safety risk in air operations, maintenance, air traffic services and aerodromes. These requirements have been expanded to include flight training and design and production of aircraft. Furthermore, ICAO has published safety management requirements for States by mandating that States establish a State Safety Programme (SSP) in order to achieve acceptable safety performance in their civil aviation systems. As such, it is beneficial for civil aviation authorities (CAAs) to harmonize their SMS and SSP requirements and implementation activities and collaborate on common topics of interest.

Civil aviation authorities will benefit from collaboration and sharing of lessons learned and best practices. Such collaboration will help authorities to avoid duplication of efforts as well as enable them to better share information. Additionally, sharing methods and tools will assist in developing robust and affordable safety management systems. Aviation industry organizations will also greatly benefit from SMS requirement harmonization among regulators, since many companies own multiple certificate types in multiple nations.

Safety Management International Collaboration Group

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the FAA Office of Aviation Safety (AVS), ICAO, and Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) held a meeting in February 2009 to discuss the potential for SMS and SSP cooperation. Meeting participants agreed that there was indeed value to collaborating on SMS and SSP topics of interest and established the Safety Management International Collaboration Group (SM ICG). The SM ICG agreed to meet semi-annually in addition to regular teleconferences and initiated three workgroups to begin developing products collaboratively.

The SM ICG has been established for collaboration and harmonization purposes and does not have authority over any of the participating organizations; each organization participates voluntarily. However, representatives are to make every effort to reach a common understanding when making SM ICG decisions/recommendations or to provide dissenting opinions. Representatives are also expected to speak for their organization and share their organization�s position, rather than personal opinions.

It has also been agreed that the SM ICG will interface with various stakeholders in the aviation system, including: industry members and groups; Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), European Commercial Aviation Safety Team (ECAST), other comparable organizations, and civil aviation authorities that have implemented or are implementing SMS and SSP.

Thus far three workgroups have been established to focus on a particular area of interest, complete specific objective or set of objectives and/or develop defined products. They are: Measurements, Documentation, and Standardization. The Measurements workgroup will develop and propose a common understanding of the characteristics of safety performance measurements, a common methodology for setting expectations regarding safety performance, and a process for identifying risk acceptance/thresholds. The Documentation workgroup will share and/or develop best practices, guidance and tools, safety behavior assessment tools, training material, and promotion material. The Standardization workgroup will develop a common taxonomy for hazards to be utilized for data categorization and analytical purposes, processes for analysis and sharing of the aforementioned data, and a comparison of international SMS/SSP terminology and alignment where possible.

The current core membership of the SM ICG includes the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) of Brazil, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Netherlands, the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) of Australia, the Direction G�n�rale de l'Aviation Civile (DGAC) in France, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) of Switzerland, Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Safety Organization, Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) and the Civil Aviation Authority of United Kingdom (UK CAA). Additionally, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is an observer to this group.

Products

The SM ICG and its work groups have and continue to develop products to be shared with the wider aviation community. These products are available via SKYbrary.

Additional International Collaboration and Outreach

FAA AVS welcomes the opportunity to initiate SMS discussions with interested civil aviation authorities. The purpose of these efforts will be to harmonize SMS efforts, collaborate on topics of common interest, share lessons learned, and ensure the progression of SMS in a similar direction. Discussion topics will include: the SMS and SSP framework, organizational changes due to SMS implementation, cost and benefits of implementation, lessons learned, phased implementation, modifications to oversight programs due to SMS, rulemaking activities, industry buy-in, change management, international SMS interoperability issues, SMS collaboration, SMS tools, and training.

Contact Information

Amer M. Younossi
Senior System Engineer
(202) 267-5164
amer.m.younossi@faa.gov