An article by Steven Bentley of Sofema Aviation Services reviewing impending changes to the Safety Management System processes within European Operations and MRO’s and the States.
EASA has mandated the requirements for the implementation of Safety management Systems and processes with community operators and maintainers. Part OPS Gen 200 provides Acceptable Means of Compliance – AMC and Guidance Material – GM to provide an understanding of the various requirements, and identifies the organizational difference between a complex and non complex management system.
Many people in our industry do not have a full understanding of the New Part OPS structure and how it is mandating the implementation of more integrated management systems. For many organisations the consequences will be dramatic as well as far reaching
The EASA proscribed requirements will be fully compliant with the new ICAO annex 19 ICAO principles. (Several  ICAO Standards contain safety management requirements – for example annex 6, 8, 11, 13, 14 and also Annex 1 (personal licensing). – Annex 19 will gather together in a single publication the SMS requirements currently spread across many different documents).
In addition EASA has addressed the outstanding issues associated with the ICAO requirement for each state to have a state safety program which should be implemented at State Level and is an essential part of the oversight process for the industry wide Safety Management System processes.
The sharing of roles between the European Union and the Member States, in compliance with the European Basic regulation makes it difficult or worse for the European Member States to individually assume responsibility for the State Safety Program – SSP. Because of the shared nature of the European System and the additional challenges which are to be found the best solution was believed to be which the introduction of an European Aviation Safety Programme (EASP) to support in harmony the work done by the various individual member states.
A European Aviation Safety Advisory Committee (EASAC) was established in October 2009 with representation from many stake holders across industry including , the European Commission and the Agency.
The out put of this collaboration process has led to the development of two elements of the European Aviation Safety Programme –Â EASP: a manual and a safety plan.
With the further introduction of a European Strategy, a programme and periodic safety plans all elements will be in place the picture is complete.
Sofema Aviation Services is currently offering 2 SMS trainings at the facilities of Jet Aviation in Dubai “Implementing a Small to Medium Company SMS” which is taking place on Tues October 2 and Wed October 3 and a 1 day training covering “Risk Assessment in Small to Medium Companies”, which is taking place on Thurs October 4th.
If you would like to reserve a place on these trainings please visit www.sassofia.com or email office@sassofia.com
