safetyculture
Smaller helicopter operators are the target of a new tool kit that will ease the pain of developing a safety management system.
By James T. McKenna
campaign to convince commercial This group aims to gain industry support helicopter operators to embrace a host for its efforts by offering individual helicopter of new recommendations for improving operators a simplified tool to assist in developing rotorcraft safety, including a tool kit for and implementing an SMS tailored to each firm’s Adeveloping a safety management system (SMS), mission and business circumstances. Group lead- has been launched by an international coalition ers expect the SMS tool kit will help persuade op- of helicopter manufacturers, regulators, opera- erators that its recommendations could improve tors and customers. both safety records and bottom lines. The tool kit The coalition, the International Helicopter is available online at
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www.flightsafety.org | AeroSafetyWorld | January 2008 | 27 safetyculture
Harris is co-chairman of the subteam that organization together laterally and vertically watched over the development of the SMS tool kit and ensures appropriate allocation of resources and participated in drafting it. He shares the chair to safety issues.” It urges that the term “safety of the Joint Helicopter Safety Implementation management” be taken to mean safety, security, Team with Greg Wyght, vice president of safety health and environmental management. The and quality for CHC Helicopter Corp., among the key focus of such a system, though, “is the safe world’s largest providers of helicopter services to operations of airworthy aircraft.” the global offshore oil and gas industry. The helicopter industry faces challenges in The IHST calls an SMS “a proven process making such an approach common. To date, the for managing risk that ties all elements of the SMS approach has been applied in industries large
International Helicopter Safety Team
he Safety Management System accidents for root causes and use that having unique operational, training, and Tool Kit for helicopter operators is data to prioritize mitigation measures to equipment aspects. The IHST settled Tthe first product of a 10-year effort address the most common problems. on grouping its analysis and mitigation to cut worldwide rotorcraft accidents The IHST is co-chaired by Matt work into 15 different mission sets. by 80 percent. Zuccaro, president of the Helicopter Most challenging of all, perhaps, Making this effort is the Association International, and Dave was the lack of reliable utilization International Helicopter Safety Team Downey, manager of the Rotorcraft numbers for helicopters. Hours flown (IHST), the outgrowth of a September Directorate of the U.S. Federal Aviation by commercial airlines are tracked in 2005 gathering of manufacturers, regu- Administration (FAA) Aircraft Certification detail by regulators and financial mar- lators and operators from around the Service. It includes the Joint Helicopter kets. But helicopter flight hours in the world. That gathering was supported Safety Analysis Team, which is doing root- United States, the world’s largest rotor- by the International Civil Aviation cause analysis of rotorcraft accidents on craft market, are based on sampling by Organization and regulators in Canada, an annual basis, and the Joint Helicopter the FAA, an approach that has proven France, the United Kingdom and the Safety Implementation Team, which will inaccurate for the small fleets involved. United States. Also backing it were develop mitigation measures based on So before it could tackle its goal of Canadian, French and U.S. accident the analysis team’s recommendations. reducing helicopter accident rates, the investigators, rotorcraft manufacturers, While the IHST is drawing on the international team had to build the and major civil and military operators. model of CAST, its goals are more ambi- database for establishing those rates. Convened in Montreal at the tious in several respects. “You can’t even meet the goal until behest of the American Helicopter First, while CAST focused on an you know how many hours are flown,” Society International and the Helicopter 80-percent reduction in fatal accidents, said Roy G. Fox, chief of flight safety Association International, the gathering the helicopter team aims for a similar at Bell Helicopter, who is leading the marked the participants’ recognition reduction in both fatal and non-fatal effort to compile that database. That of a daunting challenge: their inability accidents. Second, CAST’s target group work should be completed in 2008. year after year to reduce the number of is a fairly homogeneous one: commer- Most of the team’s work has focused accidents. That inability seemed to rein- cial airlines generally flying large fleets on the United States, but team leaders force a public impression of helicopters drawn from a small set of fixed-wing aim to establish regional teams through- as unreliable and unsafe, an impression transports. Roughly 80 percent of civil out the world, already under way to that stood as a critical obstacle to the helicopter operators have fleets of varying degrees in Australia, India and growth and prosperity of the industry. fewer than five aircraft, and they fly Latin America. The European helicopter To dismantle that obstacle, the aircraft built by more than 15 different community is pursuing a parallel effort. 260 attendees of the first International manufacturers, including those from This year, team leaders plan to meet with Helicopter Safety Symposium agreed to former Soviet republics. industry officials in United Arab Emirates, draw on the successful experience of the Third, CAST concentrates on sched- Japan and South Africa to launch Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) uled airline service. The helicopter team regional teams in the Middle East, Asia in the United States. That is, they would must cover aircraft used in a variety and Africa. search all credible data on helicopter of missions, with each mission type — JTM
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in scale and homogeneous in mission: railroads, energy, chemicals, airlines, aircraft maintenance and air traffic services. While there are large heli- copter operators, such as CHC, and many of them have adopted SMS or major components of SMS, most helicopters are spread among many small op- erators, and are used in a wide variety of missions. When the Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team presented its recommendations for mishap- mitigation measures, for instance, it did so in a number of mission-specific categories. They include instructional/training, personal/private, aerial application, emergency medical services, law enforcement, and offshore oil and gas platform support. Other categories are business/company- owned aircraft, aerial observation/patrol, air tour and sightseeing, electronic newsgathering, external load, logging, fire fighting, numerous other com- mercial activities, and utilities patrol and construc- tion. The Joint Helicopter Safety Implementation Team proposes to adhere to the same divisions in developing its mitigation recommendations. “That means we’re not after the bigs, we’re after the little guys,” said Roy G. Fox, chief of flight safety at Bell Helicopter, who worked on drafting the SMS tool kit. There is ample cause to target the small op- erator. The number of helicopter accidents has remained fairly constant for the last 20 years, including U.S. civil and military operations, and operations outside the United States. “The rotorcraft industry understands its risks more clearly than other elements of the [aviation] industry,” said the FAA’s Harris, “simply because they have an accident rate that is significant.” In its bid to change that trend, the IHST adopted the general approach used with great suc- cess in the U.S. by the CAST. That team began its work in 1997 with the objective of cutting the U.S. airline fatal accident rate 80 percent in 10 years; it has nearly achieved that goal. The foundation of its work was basing safety initiatives on reliable, veri- fied data about accident causes. The helicopter team works on the same basis. Yet its Joint Helicopter Safety Team had not yet completed its work when it called for widespread
All photos: © Chris Photography All photos: Sorensen use of SMS. Team members said that their interim
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analysis argued strongly for adoption of “Every person has a financial • Emergency preparedness and such systems. The analysis team looking management system. You balance your response, and; at the 197 accidents found that a major checkbook, you pay your taxes and • Performance measurement and contributing factor in most accidents was you pay your bills. You may do that continuous improvement. the failure to adequately manage known by yourself, with a checkbook and a risks, said Keith Johnson, safety program calculator or computer. [Microsoft Essential to the effectiveness of an manager for the Airborne Law Enforce- founder] Bill Gates may rely on ac- SMS, Johnson said, is its acceptance by ment Association. Johnson is a member countants and lawyers. Whoever you senior management as a core business of the Joint Helicopter Safety Implemen- are, the functions are the same and the responsibility. tation Team (JHSIT) and participated in performance objectives are the same: The team plans additional steps drafting the SMS tool kit. to manage your funds, pay your taxes to promote acceptance of SMS. It is In addition to the benefits an SMS and honor your debts.” developing computer software to help brings in itself, they said, it also would Toward that end, the IHST tool operators assess the savings that could serve as the framework for subsequent kit lays out 11 attributes of an effec- be achieved through use of an SMS. safety recommendations. tive SMS and offers checklists of steps It plans to offer training in the use of “We needed something to start this operators should take to achieve each that software and SMS at the Helicop- structure,” Fox said. attribute. But it leaves the details up to ter Association International’s Heli- “A good, strong SMS is a spring- each operator. Expo annual convention in February board” for other improvements, said Perhaps most important to its ef- in Houston. It also plans to develop a Fred Brisbois, director of aviation and forts to win widespread acceptance of second edition of the tool kit targeted at product safety for Sikorsky Aircraft. He its SMS tool kit, the team gives opera- medium-sized operators. is a member of the JHSIT and helped tors the option of integrating such sys- Team members believe their efforts develop the SMS tool kit. “You can have tems into their activities in incremental got an important boost in October, when the most modern, best equipped aircraft. steps. “This allows the organization to ExxonMobil Aviation issued a memoran- If you don’t have an SMS, you compro- become acquainted with the require- dum to vendors. The unit that contracts mise all the other safety advances.” ments and results before proceeding to for and oversees aviation support for that The tool kit’s drafters said they the next step,” the tool kit says. company’s oil and gas exploration activi- reviewed several SMS models, as well as The core attributes of the IHST’s ties worldwide, ExxonMobil Aviation, regulations and guidance material from SMS are: noted that its “mature and established around the world, to tailor a kit for the aircraft operators” have SMS in place. • An SMS management plan; helicopter industry. They also said they “However, smaller operators often included contributions from small, me- • Safety promotion; face challenges in the implementation dium and large helicopter operators, air- • Document and data information of a fit-for-purpose SMS that meets lines, industry groups and governments. management; operational requirements whilst being “We’re taking what’s out there and economically viable,” the memo states. putting it into laymen’s terms that the • Hazard identification and risk Nonetheless, ExxonMobil Aviation con- smaller operator can use,” said Brisbois. management; siders 11 elements, or attributes, of an The result “is somewhat unique,” • Occurrence and hazard reporting; SMS “as a minimum standard template said Harris. “Almost everybody else for long-term contracted aviation • Occurrence investigation and talks around SMS in a ‘big system’ way.” activities.” Those are the same 11 listed analysis; In a bid to win acceptance from in the tool kit. the broadest range of smaller opera- • Safety assurance oversight “Having people outside the aviation tors, he said, the team opted for a tool programs; community saying it can be done lends kit that fosters a performance-based credibility” to adoption of an SMS, said • Safety management training SMS, as opposed to one that lays out a Sikorsky’s Brisbois. ● requirements; rigid structure and procedures. Harris James T. McKenna is editor of Rotor & Wing explained the difference: • Management of changes; magazine.
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