constantly doing your homework. As Todd Conklin, a senior advisor at the US Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, says, “Safety isn’t the absence of accidents. For us, safety is really the presence of defenses. We have to move away from reacting to conse- quence and start responding to context.” The context Conklin refers to is the con- nection between all the factors leading to a negative result in a complex operating envi- ronment. Having a deeper understanding of all the mission components and how the overall aviation system influences per- formance is critical to an individual or organization’s ability to create and imple- ment the proper defenses. Knowing each step needed to accom-
plish a task (in flight or on the ground) is a vital element of risk mitigation. We need to remove the guesswork and disorder from our daily operations to fully appreci- ate the potential for hazards. When we look at industry safety man- agement guidance regarding hazard iden- tification, the system description is almost universally accepted as the pri- mary method for initially understanding the aspects of the operation that might be exposed to harm. Unfortunately, many of us don’t spend the necessary time to complete this very important activity (i.e., we don’t do our homework). We skip it altogether, make only a cursory effort to finish it, or think it’s too late in our busi- ness life cycle to do it. This approach often results in a reac-
tive nature within our organization because we never consider or anticipate what might go wrong. Instead, we wait for the consequence rather than reduce the likelihood of a negative event by pre- paring for it beforehand. As Conklin explains, “Focusing on the consequence is not the priority because it has already happened—it is too late to stop it. If we spend time reacting to the consequence, what we’re missing is the opportunity to respond to context.” Remember, the context is all the fac- tors contributing to or enabling the
consequence. In other words, the context is the environment in which the failure is allowed to occur.
Using System Descriptions to Improve Safety Outcomes The FAA describes systems as “integrated networks of people and other resources performing activities that accomplish some mission or goal in a prescribed environment.”
Any combination of elements can affect
a system at any given time. This is espe- cially true in our aviation system: opera- tions are dynamic and often unscripted, resulting in risk being extremely fluid. As a result, the underlying processes or activi- ties of your system need to have safety concepts integrated into their design if you are to expect optimal safety outcomes. So, in developing your system descrip- tion, ask the context question “How does
THE PAST & THE FUTURE OF AERIAL FIREFIGHTING.
BAMBIBUCKET.COM
MARCH 2023 ROTOR 73
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