The SMS does not exist here!

By: Sergio Romero (i)

In the dissertations of these last months that have passed between a breath of surprise
blurred with curiosity, we are sitting at a table to discuss the status of the famous Safety
Management System in civil aviation companies of my country.

The context in which the comments run allows us to filter not only the seriousness of the
faces, but also the capitulation of a common and categorical statement: The SMS does
not exist in my company!

We are faced with a sad and

shameful surrender like all of them for
this defeat that infringes us precisely
the essence of this tool that ICAO
demands for a decade.

In many of these companies, there is

no system or management. Only
traditional safety prevails here, which
is the one demanding just to be
careful and nothing else.

I remember the first edition of ICAO’s

Document 9859, wherein it was
requested not to make up safety with records. That is not the purpose of safety nor
should it be its final condition per se, but in many of these organizations that has been
the case with the complicity of several actors, with that complacency that all of us
explain and understand in the Human Factors courses.

After the first hit I received and trying to restore myself, I try to overcome such a
moment by asking at what stage of SMS implementation they are. I cannot assure my
question achieved its purpose, but I received the answer from one of the Accountable
Executives posing for this perfect painting of Aviation History. The grief in his gesture
brought me the answer I received in a distorted and not slow motion. "We're in stage
three, as everyone is supposed to be, Sergio".

We continued the meeting and the questions bubbled like a teapot under the heat of
a new but confident prosecutor's passion. Before all of them, I only received the
following negative responses:

1
  Does everyone know and understand the Safety Policy?
 Does everyone know what and how to report unsafe conditions and/or
practices?
 Is there a protocol for the treatment of these reports?
 Does risk management intend to detect the quality of existing defences and
generate new, more vigorous and effective defences?
 Are the results of the assessed risks as well as the investigations communicated
to the staff?
 Has the company managed to get its employees to read safety publications
with interest? Does anyone verify their understanding and implementation?
 Are the drills carried out as planned to generate improvements in the
established procedures?
 Is there an effective, direct and interested monitoring or follow-up by the
Accountable Executive?
 Do SMS audits seek to proactively detect gaps in the safety system or only to
generate compliance records?
 Does the company have a comprehensive safety approach or do they
consider prevention as an exclusive task of the Safety Manager?
 Does the Safety Manager fulfil an active role in safety management or is it just
an additional bureaucratic instance but with a traditional approach?

I left the abstraction for a moment and remembered an interview I had some time ago
with the wife of a crew member who died because of an aviation accident. And these
memories always assail me. A few years earlier, I talked with a helicopter pilot about the
contracts to work in the oil and gas sector. I explained him about the SMS and its
management guarantee, based on the risk analysis and how it influences the strength
of a service provider organization. He looked at me with disdain and sentenced
"Contracts are granted, because of cheap services and not thanks to the SMS, my dear
Sergio." We can talk technically about the SMS and its prevention galas, but if we think
of all the pain and tears that arise after an aviation catastrophe, I declare myself a
follower in all the concepts of Tony Tyler: "An accident is already too much." That is,
because the SMS does not exist of course.

i
Specialist in aviation safety for more than fifteen years. Lecturer and Instructor both in Spanish and English in
Safety, Human Factors and Instructional Techniques. Quality/SMS Manager with experience in Peru and
abroad. Three-decade experience in the Peruvian aviation industry, which includes 121/135 airlines, AMOs,
and aerodromes both for SMS and AVSEC. SMS consultant in civil aviation schools and, currently, in charge of
SMS/Occupational Health in an AMO.