Safety

Overview

“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect” – Captain A. G. Lamplugh

Ensuring the safety of aircraft operations is essential and is why the aviation sector is one of the most regulated business sectors in the world. However, in an ever-modernising industry, safety assurance and safety practises must continue to be at the forefront of any operation.

As systems and operations have become more complex it has resulted in safety becoming more than just an assessment of how likely the operation is to fail; it encompasses appraisal of the whole sociotechnical system. This includes taking account of human factors and the safety culture in an organisation.

That is why at Think our Safety service is built on the principle that comprehensive and rigorous risk assessment will reveal safety related risks throughout the operation. We apply a broad range of principles, concepts, and methods to understand, assess and manage safety. At its heart, our service aims to drive operational risks down to As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) and ensure risks are fully understood.

Risk assessing operational or system changes ensures that we understand the sequences of likely events or scenarios, including wider systemic factors, that may lead to an accident; what the consequences of that accident may be; and what the risks associated with those events are. This is crucial, not just to be compliant with regulations but to truly understand how the risk changes compared to current operations.

Think provides a comprehensive safety service, which includes:

• Implementing safety management systems (SMS);
• Safety assessments of technologies and concepts;
• Safety cases;
• Independent safety assurance;
• Safety science including Collision risk modelling;
• Airfield design issues.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?

At Think we can support your safety activities with a range of services. Firstly, we can help you implement a robust safety management system that will integrate with operational and aerodrome manuals and CAA and EASA regulations.

We can also assist by conducting a thorough risk assessment that will help you understand the safety of your operation throughout the whole development cycle leading to a change. We can assist with anything from capacity enhancements to airport infrastructure changes, ATC procedures to equipment changes, and identify ways to reduce the associated risk.  Alternatively, you may require a safety assessment of your current operation to form a baseline. We can help with this type of assessment by documenting existing hazards and ensuring the operation is both safe and compliant.

To assess safety, we apply recognised methods, aligned to national and international aviation regulation and guidance for identifying hazards and their consequences and assessing risk. This is followed by a comprehensive analysis of hazards, supported by our scientific and data-centric approach.

Our capability to produce bespoke collision risk models for your operation helps us to ensure identified hazards are understood fully for both current and future operations. We can also use such methods to support a quantified safety assessment if required. Our safety experts can then work with you to ensure all risks are assessed and any residual risk is reduced to As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP).

Once risks are identified and understood, we can support by specifying the safety requirements that would be necessary to assure the change meets an acceptable level of risk. Finally, we can work with you to produce safety cases to support regulatory approval of the change.

Safety Assessments for a change to:

• Capacity
• Airport Infrastructure
• Airspace
• ATC Procedures
• Airline/ Aircraft Type
• Flight Procedures
• Safeguarding
• Environment
• Comms/ NAV/ SUR
• AGL