Transportation Safety Board cites risk management failures in review of 2007 private jet accident

Critical risk management failures played a major part in a 2007 landing accident in Fox Harbour, Nova Scotia, where a Jetport private jet skidded off the runway and stopped close to neighbouring homes, injuring 10 passengers (two seriously), the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has found.
In a report on the incident, TSB faulted ineffective oversight by the Canadian Business Aviation Association (CBAA), saying private flight operators regulated by the CBAA were not held to the same standard that Transport Canada (TC) implemented for commercial operators.
TC regulations require commercial airline companies to implement safety management systems (SMS) in stages on a fixed timeline.
SMS refers to modern safety management principles that promote a proactive search for hazards, identification of risks and the best defences to reduce risk to an acceptable level.
SMS principles are supposed to be embedded within an organization’s management system so that safety policies, planning, procedures and performance measurement are integrated into day-to-day operations.
In contrast to the TC approach, the CBAA was free to implement SMS for its operators on its own terms with no fixed timeframe, the TSB report says.
“Although Jetport had been required to have a functioning SMS as per the BA-OSS since 2004 for its third-party aircraft management and more recently for the Global 5000 addition, it was determined that, at the time of the accident, notwithstanding several successful CBAA POC audits, Jetport was still following the traditional approach to safety management,” the TSB said in its report.
“This is a serious problem,” TSB board member Kathy Fox said in a statement. “Safety can be compromised when SMS plans are vague, deadlines are flexible and critical oversight is lacking.
“Without proper milestones or auditing, SMS cannot function properly and the risks increase.”
In two key recommendations, the TSB board calls for the CBAA to set SMS implementation milestones for its certificate holders and for TC to ensure the CBAA has an effective quality assurance program in place to audit its certificate holders.