Peer Reviewed Safety Management Systems: Collaboration for Continuous Improvement

Collegiate aviation program leaders have no greater responsibility than assuring safe flight operations. A Safety Management System (SMS) is an effective framework to present and reinforce key safety principles and can be effectively tailored for the collegiate aviation flight training environment. The collegiate academic tradition of peer review can be effectively leveraged to enable collaboration between collegiate aviation programs and provide a mechanism for continuous improvement of participating programs. This presentation provides a model for establishing a peer review process for collegiate Safety Management Systems and the construction of a password-protected repository for reviewed programs which can be referenced by others who submit a peer-reviewed SMS program. Sharing and collaboration between those who have developed reviewed programs will provide a forum and opportunity to propagate the continuous improvement tenet of SMS. Continuously improving Safety Management Systems reinforce key safety concepts to aviation students as well as to support the construction and maintenance of a safety culture in the flying operations portion of a collegiate aviation program