THE NEED FOR SMS/QA IN NAMA

INTRODUCTION:

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in its continued effort to improve further the level of achievable safety extended its Universal Safety Oversight Mandate to cover comprehensively, all aspects of ICAO annexes except annexes 9 and 17.

A safety sensitive and time critical service delivery organization like NAMA must anticipate and develop systems and procedures to deal with issues in these annexes that could pose potential or imminent danger or hazards to the safe operations of aircraft in the national airspace.

It is in these wise that the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency in June 2004 established a Safety Management Systems and Quality Assurance Department, which is saddled with the following task among others:

• To ensure the implementation of the provisions of section 2.26 of Annex 11 and chapter 2 of the PANS-ATM (Doc 4444) which requires that…"the appropriate ATS authority shall implement formal and systematic safety management programme for the air traffic services under its jurisdiction",…"states shall ensure that the level of air traffic services (ATS) and Communications, navigation and surveillance, as well as the ATS procedures applicable to the airspace or aerodrome concerned, are appropriate and adequate for maintaining an acceptable level of safety in the provision of ATS", the objectives being to ensure that:
  1. the established level of safety applicable to the provision of ATS within an airspace or at an aerodrome is met; and
  2. safety related enhancements are implemented wherever necessary.
• To prepare the Agency for the Universal Safety Oversight Audit programmes of ICAO on Annexes 2, 11 and14 etc.
• To implement the ISMS that will ensure that the Agency cultivates an organizational culture of Safety and Quality services in her operations.

The aim of this write-up is to provide an introduction to the functions of a Safety Management Systems and Quality Assurance.

BASIC CONCEPT OF SAFETY AND RISK

In order to understand the procedures used in Safety Management, it is necessary to examine what is meant by "Safety".

In the aviation context, safety is generally thought of by the public as being an absence of aircraft accidents.

While the elimination of accidents would be desirable, it must be recognized that such "Perfect Safety" is an unachievable goal; failures and errors can still occur inspite of the best efforts to avoid them. This is true of all forms of human endeavors.

However, while it is not possible to completely eliminate the likelihood of harm or damage, it is possible to control the processes, which could lead to hazardous events and so ensure that the likelihood of being exposed to harm or damage is as low as possible.

These concepts of what is meant by "Safe" are reflected in the following definition of Safety (which is also used in ICAO Doc 9735 - Safety Oversight Audit Manual).

"Safety is a condition in which the risk of harm or damage is limited to an acceptable level"… "A general term denoting an acceptable level of risk, of relative freedom from, and low probability of harm, it also presupposes that the associated risks that have been identified have been accepted, provided that all identified controls are implemented and enforced as appropriate".

It is also defined as "the Freedom from those conditions that can cause death, injury, occupational illness, or damage to or loss of equipment or property, or damage to the environment".

In many systems or organizations the achieved level of safety can only be assessed after the occurrence of an incident or a hazardous event. A good past safety record is not a guarantee of freedom from future accidents, particularly given the fact that major aircraft accidents in which the Air Navigation System is a contributory factor are rare events.

An effective safety management system has to therefore, adopt a proactive approach, incorporating procedures for: -

• Identification, before an accident occurs, of potential system weaknesses that could contribute to an accident.
• Estimation in advance, of the risk of accidents occurring and;
• Implementation of risk mitigation measures to reduce the likelihood of the risks being realized, where unacceptable levels of risk have been identified.

It is therefore imperative for the system to define a level of acceptability of any type of hazard or risk in all its operations and implication.

The notion for the level of acceptability of any type of risk is borne out of the fact that, hazards and risks can never be eliminated completely as far as systems are not inherently flawless and perfect, thus needs a level of tolerance established through its management.

It is important to note that what constitutes an acceptable level of risk in one accident will differ from the acceptability of risk for other types of accidents. For instance, a higher level of risk can be tolerated for occurrences where each event may lead to a small number of deaths (e.g. automobile accidents), than for those where a single event may result in a large number of deaths (e.g. an aircraft or a nuclear power station accident).

Because accidents involving commercial aircraft can potentially result in very large death tolls, the acceptable level of risk for such accidents is very low.

SCOPE OF SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

SMS is a system for the management of safety including the people, equipment (systems), processes and procedures. The Air Navigation Safety Management System can only provide a means of controlling those hazards that originate within the Air Navigation System or in which some elements of the ANS System is a contributory factor.

As an example of the latter, the ANS cannot directly address the causes of an in-flight emergency due to an aircraft system malfunction. However, it is important to establish adequate ANS procedures for handling an in-flight emergency, which will not contribute to the possibility of the emergency resulting in an incident or accident.

The Air Navigation System referred to above includes all of the people, technology and procedures required for the provision of ANS and the interface between them.

It should be noted that in some circumstances, not all of these functions would necessarily be under the direct control of the ANS providers. For example, airfield lighting, runway maintenance, airside security / safety etc may be provided by a separate airport authority.

The evaluation of the overall safety of the system must nevertheless take into account any impact on safety, which could arise from such externally provided services.

The Air Navigation System just like any other branch of the Aviation industry has basically three (3) core components that interact to provide a smooth operation of the system.

They are:
• The People
• The Procedures / Processes, and
• The Technology

All these components have safety - critical implications.

The interface between these (3) components that is required for the smooth operation of the ANS system is a complex one. However, the safety management programme in NAMA is being developed to consistently strive to maintain an acceptable safety level in the operation of the whole system.

In order to do this, a proactive rather than a reactive approach will be adopted. The department, working in concert with specific unit personnel will identify as many as possible, if not all the safety critical issues within the system for analysis, evaluation or assessment and review in a manner that it will help the management in developing a proactive and systematic approach to eliminating, resolving or mitigating them.

This will result in pre-empting the faults or acting before the event, so that even if incidents or accidents do inadvertently occur, the impact would have been reduced to as low as reasonable practicable (ALARP).

For NAMA to succeed in these efforts, the basic ingredients must be made available. Already, the SMS/QA department enjoys the full commitment of senior management, all ASM's have been directed to constitute and activate a safety committee for their airports, a safety review of the ATS systems and operations is in the making and a safety review board will soon be established to comprise members of the senior management and it will be responsible in the main for the review of all safety activities of the Agency.

The SMS / QA department in consultation and collaboration with all departments and directorates has formulated a safety policy, is setting a formal and documented safety objectives and goals/targets, is developing a voluntary safety reporting system to complement the mandatory one, a safety information system (to and from the workforce) - all geared towards the cultivation, establishment and maintenance of a generative organizational safety culture.

CONCLUSION:

The SMS/QA department is currently at the implementing stage of the following elements of the Management System for the Agency: -

• A Management Philosophy for managing and enhancing safety and quality of operations in the system;
• A Safety Policy that will allocate responsibilities, authority and accountability for Safety in the organization;
• An all incorporating training programme that will define processes and structures that will provide for the development of knowledge and skills necessary to do a qualitative job;
• An Operating Procedure, explaining what Management wants staff to do to execute the safety and quality policy, as well as planning, organizing and controlling all operations and creating avenues for monitoring and assessment of safety and quality status and processes.

In recognition of the fact that the cornerstone of safety is vigilance and commitment, the department shall encourage constructive criticisms as inputs and our staff should be active in observing and reporting hazardous occurrences and other safety and quality enhancement issues or events?

The Mandatory reporting system presently in circulation shall be maintained but the voluntary confidential reporting system presently in the text-check / implementation stage is aimed at encouraging staff to honestly and objectively assist in identifying and reporting any issue(s) that has safety or quality implication in NAMAs operation, without the feeling of being threatened by the possibility of investigation that could lead to a sanction or blame.

Recommendation of staff to management for reward for excellent and conscious safety practices is also being entrenched to ensure that those that deserve commendations or reward are appropriately accorded same.

In order to achieve our desired level of safety and quality, we must prepare to cultivate the cultures corresponding to our desired objective and this in my opinion can only be achieved by an attitudinal change.

Air Traffic Controllers must be proactive and must rededicate themselves to the extreme.

Yes, it is a well-known fact that ours is a service that is not widely known, but is extremely expected of in terms of delivery. I can also boldly state without fear of being contradicted that, we have delivered and have been delivering qualitatively so, what remains is to refocus ourselves to making our system safer in the upcoming and challenging future.

The component parts of the ANS system are interdependent one with another, if we are sure ours is safe, and what can we say of the others?

We must appreciate that all the parts of the system must be synchronized in operation, as a failure of one part inadvertently affects the smooth workings of the others - e.g. ATC and ATSES; Finance and ATC / ATSES; Administration/ Supplies and ATSES/ATC e.t.c

We must all see NAMA as part and parcel of us and vice-versa and thus be prepared to make the required sacrifice of committing more of our resources of time, energy and intelligence for the advancement of the Agency's goals and objectives - after all we are in a noble profession with defined codes and discipline.

I therefore enjoin you all to take up the challenge of excellence that NAMA is offering to ANY STAFF to make a difference in the way and manner we perform our duties in order to make the Nigerian Airspace a haven of Safety.

Thank you and God bless.