PEOPLE ASK ME WHAT I DO...

You know how it is. Introduced to a complete stranger at a polite drinks party, once you have exhausted the pleasantries, one of you is going to ask "What do you do then?" My wife has taken to interjecting with "He's a pilot", which was once true of course, because she has grown tired of watching me struggle to explain what I actually do. With a little time to think, here are some of the things I have done in the last couple of years:

Written and presented a course on Compliance Monitoring to an airline in Nepal, which almost unbelievably operates helicopters to Everest Base Camp as a routine, and exceptionally up to Camp 2 in emergencies;
Closely engaged with an ambitious and rapidly expanding airline in the UK, helping to develop an organisational culture which embraces the concept of a Management System as defined in ORO.GEN.200;
Spoken on the merits of procedural compliance at the Eurocontrol Safety Behaviours Forum in Brussels;
Run a human performance and error management workshop for a large group of anaesthetists at a hospital in Essex - interestingly they invited me to observe the teams in action for two days in live theatres ahead of the workshop, to better understand their work (challenging for someone who doesn't do blood very well);
Conducted an audit of a UK operator's management system, using the new EASA Management System Assessment Tool for the first time;
Acted as an expert witness in flight operations and safety in a European airline's defence against injury claims (all successfully to date);
On the subject of expert witnesses, I have developed and delivered a course on how to present expert evidence (see below);

Lukla, NEPAL

Delivered Safety Management System initial and recurrent training to another Nepalese operator - this one ferries thousands of trekkers each year in and out of Lukla, gateway to Everest and one of the world's more challenging destinations;








Led a safety review of an extreme aviation sports portfolio in the Middle East - skydiving, paramotors, gyrocopters etc;
Delivered Upset Prevention & Recovery Training (UPRT) to a group of flight instructors in Lithuania;
Presented seminars on Evidence Based Training to operators and industry professionals from around Europe and Africa;
Trained departmental Risk Champions for a UK operator;
Developed and directed several emergency response exercises;

You see why my wife says I'm a pilot...

RISK & PROBABILITY

During audits and safety meetings I have often been asked ‘what are your top 5 risks?’ I have a problem with that question…

Let me start with a closer look at how the aviation industry historically quantifies ‘risk’. Once the system identifies a ‘hazard’ in the operating environment, we reach for a risk matrix of some kind – typically based on the 5 x 5 example described in ICAO Doc 9859, the Safety Management Manual. You know the one: ‘severity’ along one axis and ‘probability’ along the other.

I don’t really have a problem with the severity scale; it seems quite reasonable to imagine what the ‘worst case feasible outcome’ of the hazard could be and attach a severity in relation to the word pictures associated with the scale. But what about probability? Across the scale you will usually see 5 possible choices ranging from ‘very likely’ to ‘very unlikely’ or similar. What do they mean? If you look in the dictionary for ‘likely’ it will say something like ‘such as well might happen or be true; probable’ but that won’t mean a lot to a risk assessor. To help we tend to develop simpler word pictures to try and make the choice easier and more consistent or we might add a mathematical probability like ‘once in 10,000 flights’.

The trouble is that, once we have accepted that there is a probability of greater than zero, we need to be prepared for the outcome to happen at any time. Even if the probability is once in 10,000,000 flights, that accepts that it could occur on the next flight or the 10,000,000^th one, or anywhere in between. So for any activity that we propose to repeat indefinitely, like going flying, we must accept an inevitable occurrence whatever the probability.

Can I tell you what my ‘top 5’ risks are? No. While each of my identified hazards may have differing probabilities, they do have a probability and I don’t know which is going to happen next.

SAFETY & SECURITY AUDIT IN A HIGH RISK LOCATION

The following is a 'guest post' from my Gates Aviation colleague John Edwards:

I have recently completed a risk assessment of the safety and security of an airline's crews, engineers and aircraft while operating in a high risk environment during the period of a proposed wet lease. The 'donor' airline was registered in a state that has, and the airline itself has embraced, a relatively high level of risk aversion.

 It is well known that there has been a longstanding history of terrorist attacks against commercial (and military) aviation in the location where the personnel and aircraft would be based and that numerous fatalities have resulted.

 The state authorities advise that that "all foreigners, may not move out of their city of residence without proper security and without prior coordination with the law enforcement agency". The approach taken to providing security in civilian life, especially in relation to what might be considered 'soft targets' e.g. selected public highways and shopping malls, was evident and likely to aid deterrence and detection (of terrorists and planned attacks). There was meaningful evidence to suggest efforts had been taken to harden these (previously soft) targets and protect the related communities.

 Security had been tightened at the state's international airports following a number of terrorist attacks in 2014 and further strengthened in 2015. A historic ban of locally registered airlines from operating into the EU for safety reasons had been lifted in 2015. ICAO and the USA consider that implementation of ICAO aviation safety standards in the state to exceed the global average. The airline with which the wet lease was proposed, is a member of IATA and therefore when last audited met the requirements of IOSA. Viewed in combination these facts provided evidence that the national aviation security and safety culture and infrastructure are widely considered to be sound. The main roads between the airports and hotels feature multiple manned checkpoints and the hotels where the crews and engineers were most likely to be staying, had robust security measures in place. The better quality shopping malls had entry search points operated by the military or other government agencies. It is known that places of worship and large public gatherings should be avoided and that periods leading-up to political elections can see increased civil tension and unrest. As in most business sectors and risk management environments, there was scope for continuous improvement to aviation security processes and procedures and implementation of best practices. But I considered existing measures to be relevant, adequate and sound. Accordingly, I concluded that subject to these measures being maintained, to the threat level not being raised to 'red' (the highest level) and to good situational awareness being exercised by operational personnel from the donor airline, when they are on site, the wet lease should not materially increase risk exposure. My assessment was that there are no substantive safety or security reasons why the proposed wet lease should not proceed as planned.