BRUXELLES, BELGIUM – 14 September 2022.
Second day of the conference brought a full agenda of presentations that addressed the EU Safety Landscape. We are bringing you our summary.
Yesterday we had interesting first day of EASA 360 Conference held in the hotel nhow, Bruxelles, Belgium, for which summary you can read here.
FLASH TALK – How to prioritize Safety Issues?
Originally meant to be presented by Mr Nabil Ben Mami, but as he was unable to attend the event the presentation was done by EASA’s Rowan Powel who did a great job in helping out for this presentation. Mrs Powel showed how EASA is using a better way or better approach in how they prioritize Safety issues which they identified. Before they used issues per domain and paired for comparison in order to rank them (higher/lower) which was good for instinct but it was not rational. They then iterated how to improve this and came up with an idea of SIPI (Safety Issue Prioritization Index) which was born during the first lockdown in 2020. Safety issue prioritization is a structured approach allowing safety issues to be risk-classified in a consistent manner, regardless of the operational domains they belong to, and regardless of the source of the safety intelligence (safety data, experts’ inputs, etc.) through which they have been identified. More can be found at EPAS Volume III 2022-2026 published by EASA.
Rowan Powel, EASA
360° PANEL – Approach Path and Energy Management
Approach path management (APM) is a ground based Safety Nets intended to warn the controller about increased risk of controlled flight into terrain accidents by generating, in a timely manner, an alert of aircraft proximity to terrain or obstacles during final approach. Approach path management is considered a high Safety Issue by EASA for which there were 19 mitigating actions proposed in order to tackle this issue. It will be published in aforementioned EPAS. The panel was moderated by Aigars Krastins, Senior Domain Safety Risk Manager, EASA with its panelists Laszlo Ekes, Head of Safety, Security and Compliance, Wizz Air Malta, Gunter Ertel, System Safety – Senior Program Manager, Boeing, Christopher McGregor, Flight Safety Officer, ATR, Andre Vernay, Human risk programme manager, DGAC France and Gabor Vass, Head of the Approach unit, HungaroControl. The panelists discussed some of the trending issues in regards to APM with Wizzair’s Ekes describing TEM (Threat and Error Management) in their Approach Path Management where they keep a loop of reporting, analysis, training and feedback to its crew members. One of the most efficient tools is go-around policy which must be performed when any flight crew calls for it. Mr McGregor from ATR talked about how technology is available to support APM (LPV, LNAV, VNAV, KNP-AR, enhanced vision systems) and addressed the need for continous improvement on all sides from manufacturer to infrastructure. Mr Ertel explained the 2 main technical mitigation strategies such as Prevention and Intervention which acts as a safety net.
360° PANEL – Safe airspace integrations of UAS
We had next panel about UAS or Unmanned Aircraft Systems where we had a discussion on how to integrate safer new emerging players in aviation industries – a rise of UAS such as drones. The panel was moderated by Renée Pelchen-Medwed, ATM Domain Safety Risk Manager, EASA with panelists Rob Akron-Punselie, Vice Chairman Workgroup UAS+, ECA, Maria Algar Ruiz, Drone Programme Manager, EASA, Olivier Mrowicki, Programme Manager ASM/ATS/ATFCM, EUROCONTROL, Jan-Eric Putze, CEO, Droniq GmbH and Martin Timmons, Head of Safety Management, IAA. The panelists discussed about unauthorized UAS activity especially during the take off and approach area. Such unauthorized access disrupt operators (airports closing runways, aircraft going into holding pattern, TCAS triggering, costs). There should be an effective communication to UAS operators about regulations, restricted area access and responsibilities.
360° PANEL – The human performance challenge
Moderated by John Franklin, Head of Safety Promotion, EASA with panelits Sanda Bergmane-Behmane, HR Business Partner, Air Baltic Corporation AS, Mads Eklung, Rulemaking Officer, EASA/CAA Denmark, Thomas Leoff, Chairman, IAAPS/ Lufthansa Aviation Training, Jim Pegram, Director Safety, Security and Compliance, Easyjet and Florian Zander, Head of Safety Management, Cologne/Bonn Airport. This interesting panel brought up some emerging risks as Mr Pegram from Easyjet talked about fatigue being underlying issue of other issues and how physical and mental health are important to apply on all employees inside the company. Mr Leoff touched the subject of the need to have a system for sudden loss of experienced work forces such as instructors and others. He also called for pilot trainings to involve new technologies. Mr Zander from Cologne/Bonn Airport talked about performance feedback and how it is in Safety harder to achieve it in comparison to FDM. Mrs Bergmane-Behmane mentioned how due to COVID-19 there was 50% of layoffs and calls for open discussion of mental health which is slowly improving.
360° PANEL – The management of repetitive defects in safety critical systems
In the final panel of the day moderated by Emilie Marchais, Senior Domain Safety Risk Manager, EASA with panelists Ian Goodwin, Director Flight Safety – Safety Enhancement, Airbus, Radj Jagbandhan, Director line maintenance international, KLM, Alex Scerri, Founder/ A380 Captain, Avioscribe, Swaran Sidhu, Head of Fleet Technical Services, Easyjet and Cengiz Turkoglu, VP Technical, International Federation of Airworthiness. In this interesting presentation the panelists shared their experiences in how to manage repetitive defects. Mr Sidhu said that Easyjet is tracking closed recurrent defects in order to confirm the effectiveness of its corrective actions. Mr Goodwin from Airbus would like to see more communication between the operators specially non-EU and also mentioned how to balance too little or too much info to crew about defect management. Ian also said there is a challenge tracking defects on equipment and not just the tail. Mr Jagbandhan from KLM highlighted that people are at the center. Mr Scerri added that there should be technology use to improve feedback delay which can help the management of defects. Mr Turkoglu compared engineering to SMS as both are tracking issues.
The wrap up of day 2 of the conference by John and Rowan who highlighted one safety aspect which is a mindset which consists of culture and mood. Also the need to share information inside the industry is on top of EASA’s agenda.
We send our gratitude to EASA for organizing such event and amazing work they are doing to improve Safety across Europe and worldwide. Looking forward to next future events.
Also we would like to give our gratitude for some help in notes from Donovan Koch!
