A practical approach to assess risk in aviation domains for safety management systems

The introduction of a safety management system (SMS) in the real operational environment has become a key factor in a proactive view of flight safety. The deep cultural change and effort that the application of an SMS requires, at economical and organisational level, has led to a delay in the definition of shared mandatory guidelines by the international civil aviation authorities. At present, the majority of attempts to develop an SMS are the result of the efforts of single organisations and operators. This paper describes a methodology aimed at practical and straightforward implementations of risk assessment processes and able to tackle real problems. The application process might be used as guideline for the analysis of critical activities resulting from retrospective and prospective assessments of operational environments. The results obtained for a sample case, based on a real "change situation" occurring in a medium size flight operator, demonstrate how the process is carried out and how to highlight and deal with the underlining critical threats and hazards that require immediate action in order to guarantee acceptable safe operational levels. These include the definition of corrective actions and the identification of responsible persons to monitor the activities designated to mitigate the associated risk.