WHY

Aviation is the safest mode of transportation in the United States. This unprecedented level of safety in aviation has created an environment where the public and our elected officials have no tolerance for risk when it comes to flying. Risk in the national airspace system is continuously evolving, increasingly complex, and interconnected across various aviation industry sectors.

Taking safety to the next level will require us to—

1. Reduce the time it takes to identify and manage risk
2. Move toward a more proactive and predictive environment for addressing risk
3. Leverage proven advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Achieving additional safety improvements will require an integrated, holistic approach that speeds the flow of information—from hazard identification through implementation on the front line of operations to monitoring the effectiveness of mitigations developed by safety risk management panels. It also requires even greater coordination, collaboration, and cooperation between government and industry, as well as across various industry sectors.

The U.S. Commercial Aviation Safety Team (USCAST) convened a diverse group of nearly 100 safety experts from government and industry to develop recommendations for a new governance and operational model that leverages advanced technology and industry safety management systems (SMS). The group finalized two key recommendations from their work.

Two key recommendations:

1. Share safety intelligence in an evolving environment, including open-source data, through improvements in the governance of the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) system and USCAST.

2. Harmonize the disparate efforts of the safety teams (USCAST, General Aviation Joint Safety Committee (GAJSC), U. S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST), and Drone Safety Team (DST)) under a cohesive national framework that can be expanded to encompass new entrants, employing the SMS process as its foundation.

HOW

The new transformative USAST model integrates the existing safety team with ASIAS. Supported by an Aerospace National Safety Issue Registry (ANSIR), this model bolsters the effectiveness of national-level aviation risk assurance. The USAST will be committed to a collaborative process that prioritizes systemic safety issues to be addressed through shared data analytics resources or individual aviation community teams.

Key Enhancements of the USAST 

• Unified Governance Structure: Centralizes decision-making and action within the USAST, ensuring a cohesive risk management strategy across all aviation communities, including ASIAS.
• Aerospace National Safety Issue Registry: Establishes the ANSIR as a centralized repository for national safety issues, enhancing transparency and facilitating shared mitigation efforts across the industry. Leverages industry-leading analytics capabilities and security to allow those with clearance to have 24/7 access to shared safety intelligence.
• Maintain Constant Vigilance: Focuses work groups on Safety Assurance, scanning the data to identify emergingorlatentrisksandemployingadvancedriskanalysisandpredictiveanalyticstoinformdecision-making, enabling proactive risk management.
• Treat Risk with Expert Insight: Pulls together ad-hoc, front-line expert Safety Risk Management teams as needed to develop voluntary safety enhancements.
• Safety is a Team Sport: Encourages a trusted environment where government and industry partners collaborate towards common safety objectives, enrich the process with diverse perspectives, and share best practices and expertise.

The USAST and community safety teams use SMS techniques to address potential systemic safety issues identified through ASIAS, industry forums, or Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. The system-level safety cycle touches all pillars of SMS: Safety Policy (governance), Safety Assurance (data monitoring), Safety Risk Management (development of new Safety Enhancements), and Safety Promotion (sharing lessons learned with other safety professionals).

Aerospace National Safety Issue Registry

The registry facilitates the sharing of potential safety hazards to allow all to proactively manage risks. The ANSIR is the answer to ensuring a comprehensive approach to potential aviation safety issues. An ANSIR team will monitor information contributed to the ANSIR, gather available data, and then present a preliminary analysis to the USAST for prioritization and agreement on the next steps.

Elevating Systemic Safety Issues

Definition: A systemic safety issue involves a potential hazard(s) that affects multiple segments (air navigation, airport operations, maintenance, manufacturer, light operations, etc.) of the airspace system or multiple industry entities within a single segment of the airspace system. Whether the potential hazard could have a global, national, regional, or local impact should also be considered, and the broader the impact, the more likely the potential hazard is to be a systemic safety issue. 

Criteria:

• An operational anomaly/outlier but current procedures or processes appear to be inadequate to address the safety issue, OR

• The safety issue is expected to have elevated risk (e.g., it is identified as a result of an accident or incident, or it is assumed to have elevated risk) and a system level safety risk assessment has not been completed, OR

• An impending or urgent change to the aerospace system that could foreseeably negatively impact the effectiveness of existing safety risk controls. OR

• An issue that is, or may reasonably become, highly visible, or has the potential to be highly visible.