The lower reporting rates, particularly for incidents, was something the group felt the industry could improve. While we do not mandate safety management systems for the balloon sector, a main component of safety management systems (SMS) is to capture hazards and occurrences. Higher numbers of reports, even if you classify them as minor or non-significant issues, allow you to:
- monitor the safety performance of your organisation
- recognise developing safety trends.
What operators can do?
Under the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003, operators must make reports of accidents and incidents to the ATSB. These include:
- Immediately Reportable Matters (IRM)
- Routinely Reportable Matters (RRM)).
In addition, operators must also make a report to CASA whenever they contravene a CASR during the management of an emergency.
While we don’t mandate SMS for balloon operators, CASRs 131.285 requires operators to record details of any flight incident about the flight that:
- endangered the safe operation of the aircraft
- could have endangered the safe operation of the aircraft.
Using a confidential hazard or safety reporting system, operators can recognise underlying situations or conditions that have potential to affect aviation safety. Safety reporting can be reactive, after an event has occurred, or proactive, trying to predict what might happen in the future. Operators should actively encourage and promote voluntary reporting of less serious incidents as they give a useful source of hazard identification in their organisation.
It is important their safety reporting systems use the information provided to improve safety rather than to apportion blame. This especially true if individuals are reporting instances of genuine errors or mistakes. They should analyse reasons for the errors to understand what may have led them to occur and to learn safety lessons.
What we are doing and already delivered?
We recommend and encourage balloon operators to apply a safety management system to achieve best practices and keep both operators and passengers safe.
We have developed some SMS resources that are scalable to your needs including a free Safety Management System (SMS) kit for aviation. In this toolkit is SMS Booklet 7 – Scaling for size and complexity which we primarily wrote as guidance for smaller and less complex organisations.
Our Aviation Safety Advisors (ASAs) are also here to help you meet your safety requirements. The team offers safety education and advice through on site visits and seminars, no matter how small or big the organisation might be. To contact your local ASA, please visit the Aviation Safety Advisor page of our website. They can help you to organise an event in your local area or to find out more about webinars they are running.
We also offer a safety promotion sponsorship program to improve and raise awareness of aviation safety in across the civil aviation sector. Successful applicants usually use funding for:
- workshops
- seminars
- safety educational programs.
These can be virtual or online.