New ICAO Safety Management Systems (SMS Requirements)
6th of February 2009, 3:26 PM
The international Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requires commercial operators worldwide to have SMS this year, and large and turbo-jet non-commercial operators will need it in November 2010. Safety Management Systems represent a systematic, explicit and comprehensive process for managing risks to safety. A successfully developed and implemented Safety Management System will ensure that safety is a core value in an operation and is integrated into all management systems including operational, maintenance, financial and human resource management.
SMS is a longstanding feature of business aviation industry best practices. “The business aviation community has always been proactive in its efforts to minimize accidents and incidents. In 2002 IBAC and Member Associations introduced the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO), which is a code of best practices designed to help corporate flight departures achieve a high level of safety and professionalism. In continuation, today we are assisting commercial flight departments by providing an SMS toolkit, a compilation of guidance materials that should help them with implementation, as required by regulatory authorities."
