Safety
recommendations in the transportation industry are the engines that
drive needed changes.
When
an accident or an incident occurs, the resulting investigation will
attempt to find out what happened and why. But that should only be one
step in the process to implement changes so that a similar accident or
incident does not occur. The recommendations that are generated as a
result of any investigation are the most important products that come
from any investigation. They are the fruits of your labor. The
recommendations provide a game plan for addressing the safety
deficiencies found during an investigation. When safety recommendations
are widely disseminated and implemented, safety will actually improve.
Not
only will this course cover recommendations that result from
investigations conducted by official government accident investigation
agencies (such as the NTSB in the U.S.), it will also cover
recommendations that come from incident and accident investigations
conducted by government regulatory agencies (such as the FAA) and by
industry investigators (such as airlines or airplane manufacturers)
reviewing problems in their own operations and procedures. In this
sense safety recommendations can be looked upon as the most important
accident prevention tool.
This
course will cover all aspects of developing and responding to safety
recommendations. Students will learn how to identify safety problems
that need correcting, and when to make recommendations. Some safety
problems uncovered during an investigation require urgent consideration
and immediate action to avoid a similar accident, while others can wait
for the completion of the investigation. The course will cover the
role of parties in recommendation development and look at the process
from the perspective of the eventual recipient of the recommendations.
Various types of recommendations will be discussed. This course will
demonstrate how to select the recipient of a recommendation; how to work
as a team to develop recommendations; what makes a good recommendation,
and how to “sell” your recommendations to those who must approve them
and those who must decide whether to implement them.
One
key topic in the course will be how to track and follow up on
recommendations to ensure they are implemented. In other words,
students will learn how to avoid creating recommendations destined to
only gather dust on someone’s shelf or bottom desk drawer.
Actual
cases will be discussed, which will allow students to improve their
skills in developing, presenting and justifying recommendations.
Importantly, the course will also teach students how to respond to
recommendations.
This course is intended for anyone who
is, or may become involved in accident investigation, accident
prevention and safety improvement. Individuals working for government
accident investigation agencies, government regulatory agencies, in
military aviation, in commercial and corporate airline operations and
for airplane manufacturers will benefit from this course.
