The loneliest person in the world

Capt Cor Blokzijl, DFO

The loneliest person in this world was described in the SundayTimes, some time ago.

The person was a single male, walking in New York City on a Sunday morning and his mobile phone had run out of battery power. Nobody in the world would talk to him, since everybody was walking with a mobile at his/her ear chatting continuously. On early Sunday morning, the shops were all closed and he could not get a battery charger. He was an outcast in this world and nobody wanted to talk to him………

Apparently we can not survive without our mobile phones anymore…..the world of communication is hooked to this electronic gadget. (If you don’t phone you listen to music.) Well it must be, otherwise there is no explanation for the fact that even before the last passenger is down the step-ladder, the crew is communicating. Not to each other, but to whoever is at the other end of the (mobile) line. They walk back to FLOPS fully busy, through the mobile phone

On every flight we fly as a passenger, we hear the safety demo and listen to the announcement that it is forbidden to use mobile phones on board the aircraft. However we do it ourselves all times, even on the apron we are already making calls, which must be of such importance that we can not wait till we are in the terminal building and have checked-out.

When we fuel our car at the fuel station, we see the sign of a mobile phone with a red diagonal line through it. We know, no mobile phoning allowed. On the ramp, we do not care if refueling is in progress or not……..everybody; crew, technical department staff, ground handling, everybody uses his/her mobile phone…..

From UK I found the following text and I am sure our DGCA is of the same opinion:

The CAA strongly discourages the use of mobile phones in the vicinity of aircraft, because of the risk of distraction, aircraft system interference and possibly fire. Whereas the risk of a spark of sufficient intensity to ignite fuel vapour released during fuelling is extremely remote, under normal circumstances, the risk of a mobile phone user becoming distracted is much greater and may result in physical contact with the aircraft and injury. Signals from mobile phones can also interfere with fuel gauge readings, navigation equipment and may cause spurious fire/smoke warnings in cargo/baggage holds.

Especially the fact that one is distracted and the hearing is partly disabled makes it very dangerous on the ramp. You might not hear the noises which could warn you for imminent danger.

"Safety Management, Who is responsible?"

by Capt. Cor Blokzijl
Director Flight Operations
Mandala Airlines
From Safety Talks Bulletin

By law the CEO, Mr Warwick Brady is the accountable manager and therefore he carries the final responsibility for the safety of our airlines. His tool, in principle, is the flight safety department, which should put all procedures in place to create a 100% safe airlines environment.
But.....
an airlines is by nature a technically, very complex environment and the ability of the organization to deliver safe outcomes depends largely on the skills and behaviours of individuals at the "front lines". In other words, you and me.

Although the CASR highlights the duties fro companies (and their management), which hold an Airline Operators Certificate, regarding (flight) safety, in reality we all have the same duty as the management, as far as flight safety is concerned. Risks associated with flying operations are obvious, we know from experiences that multitude of factors, including the ones associated with our own daily work, can result into an incident or accident. It does not really matter who carries the ultimate responsibility, we all have the professional, moral and ethical duty to carry the same responsibility as the CEO. We all have to make our airline the safest airlines in Indonesia, if not in the world.

Safety Management, what does it mean? it seems a flippant questions. We all know what safety management is, when we have "positive" safety. But when we have "negative" safety and incidents/accidents occur, we are not to sure and everybody looks at the other person. If we are to achieve a safe operation, we stop all accidents/incidents! Right?.......Wrong!

According the statistics more than 80% of all incidents and accidents are caused by human factors. In other words, human beings like you and me. Aircraft seldom fall out of the sky, due to technilal problems, by far the biggest problem is the human factor, where despite our best efforts, we make errors or engage in deliberate unsafe actions (cutting corners).
When we manage safety, we must accept that we are basically conducting risk management.

We try to avoid bad things to happen by putting in place the appropriate mitigation systems to minimize the safety risk as much as possible. Safety Management must strive to reach an absolute 100% safe environment, but realistically we have to accept that things go wrong as long as human beings are involved, therefore Safety Management is more than anything judgment.

Judgment assessing priorities and making decisions which are all elements of management in its more general sense.
Despite the significant improvements in modern technology and the high levels of reliability in our industry, aviation safety is a regulated activity because the nature of an aircraft accident normally results in a highly concentrated and visible loss of life. It is the nature of the consequences of an accident, rather than the likelihood of an accident happening in the first place, that drives public demand for a safe environment. The public buys its ticket and has the right to be transported in the most expeditious way, safely to its destination.

The public demands from all of us that we manage our safety in such a way that we provide a safe journey and no sleepless nights.

The old saying goes, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. This is where the problem lies. We can't see safety in our airline budget, but if we can see it, it is too late! Matters have dramatically gone wrong.

Therefore it is our responsibility to ensure, we never see it in the budget and one of our basic tools is Information, Observing, Noticing and Reporting. Reporting can be in any form, even anonymous, through the flight safety box. It can have any form, but it does not have any time. Reporting has to be instantaneous. When we return to our flippant questions, we have to be aware that we all see the obvious, but we don't see what can go wrong in our obvious routine. Look for it, look all the time how things are done and by whom. Try to visualize what can go wrong when we conduct matters in the way we have always done it, because safety management is you and me, during our daily routine.