Focus on: Safety

Safety is not an accident

Safety surely is the highest priority for all aviation actors. Consequently, one of the key performance targets of the SESAR work programme is to improve the safety performance by a factor of ten while air traffic is expected to triple. Within SESAR, safety is tackled from an operational point of view, Safety Cases are built and improvements of safety methods are being elaborated. In all this, SESAR takes a holistic approach towards safety: involving equipment, procedures and humans.

While all projects within the SESAR work programme have to perform safety assessments, the task of improving safety by a factor of ten calls for a thorough safety management plan. The key fundamental safety questions that the SESAR programme has to address are:

• Will the proposed SESAR concept of operations and architecture meet the safety target? If not, what additional safety defences or arrangements need to be in place?
• Given that SESAR aims to improve safety, where will this additional safety come from?
• What will be the flexibility in terms of different ANSPs being able to ‘pick and mix’ changes to the ATM/ANS functional system and yet still achieve the required safety levels?
• Which safety performance indicators are practicable, insightful, sensitive (but not overly sensitive) to safety fluctuations, and accurate over short-term and medium-, long-term timescales?

Answers to those questions will be taken care of by the Project P16.06.01 – the so-called Safety Support and Coordination Function - drawing on information/evidence reported by safety assessment activities within all work packages and, more generically, validation and verification activities (Operational Services and Environment Definition (OSED), Safety and Performance Requirements (SPR), validation exercises and associated prototypes run on Industry Based Platforms) organised in the validation and verification roadmap.

The key part of the work programme for P16.06.01 is to develop Safety Cases for the gate-to-gate air navigation services provided by SESAR-compliant ATM/ANS functional systems. Safety Cases will be developed for each of the three steps of the concept story board and the safety arguments will be established addressing the system engineering lifecycle up to and including the pre-industrialisation phase.

To adequately address the change of scope, functions and boundaries of the SESAR concept of operations from a safety standpoint, a tailored safety management system is being organised, implemented, run and maintained including the following key elements:

• A SESAR Safety Policy to ensure that the SESAR programme intends to make a significant contribution to aviation’s efforts to continually improve its high safety standards;
• Assurance that the Safety Policy statements are being discharged through the SESAR organisation and work programme;
• A Safety Reference Material providing a detailed practical guide to safety assessment and assurance of the whole range of projects throughout the typical system development lifecycle being considered in the SESAR Development Phase. The Safety Reference Material will be regularly updated with fast-tracked safety research on required safety assessment tools and techniques to overcome current limitations in contemporary safety assessments;
• The coordination with EASA on the development of the Safety Reference Material within the scope of ongoing activities amending the existing ATM/ANS regulatory framework on safety assessment of changes;
• A Safety Management Plan specifying the safety assurance activities that are to be carried out by all relevant SESAR projects in order to create necessary and sufficient evidence for the production of the Safety Cases mentioned above;
• The direct support to projects through training and coaching and the provision of assurance that complex relationships between projects are dealt with to address adequately the “compound/aggregate risk”;

The development and maintenance of the Safety Cases per se and the provision of decision making inputs to the Business Cases;

The regular and tight interface with those authorities having legal obligations with regard to SES implementation, i.e. EASA and National Authorities (NSAs, NAAs). Their early involvement is deemed essential to anticipate regulatory issues and pave the ground to positive regulatory positions on SESAR products.

On the basis of the safety management elements described above and building on the safety culture within the programme ensuring the proper levels of commitment to safety, competency and resourcing, answers to the fundamental safety questions above will be provided, thereby maximizing the “deployability” of the SESAR improvements.

Europe’s aviation safety body on board

In November the Executive Directors of the SESAR Joint Undertaking and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Patrick Ky and Patrick Goudou, as well as the Director-General of Eurocontrol, David McMillan, signed cooperation and working arrangements to secure EASA’s support regarding the implementation of the SESAR work programme. EASA’s expertise is sought in different domains, including impact analysis of new concepts on the rulemaking, oversight and certification activities of EASA; advice on methodologies for the acceptable elaboration of safety deliverables (safety cases, safety assessments...); review of these safety deliverables and issue of opinion; or the assessment of ‘certifiability’ of future systems/services derived from SESAR concepts. Additionally, the Agency will provide input in different work packages and will participate in updating the ATM Master Plan as well as the regulatory and standardisation roadmaps. Read here below a short interview with Dr Norbert Lohl, Certification Director of EASA, on this future cooperation.

1.) Dr Lohl, EASA, the SESAR Joint Undertaking and Eurocontrol have just signed a working arrangement. What are your expectations?

Our expectations are that this working arrangement will provide a lot of assistance to EASA, in particular for the safety assessment of the new technology, systems and modes of operation designed by SESAR. This assistance is expected both in terms of technical excellence, but also in additional manpower, for the benefit of the SESAR programme.

2.) An important area of cooperation will be the certifiability of future SESAR systems. How will the cooperation between EASA and the SESAR Joint Undertaking look like exactly in this area?

EASA intends to build on the best available industrial practices and experience available in the field. EASA will be eager to build on the activities already conducted in this field, in particular by Eurocontrol.

3.) Safety is paramount in aviation and it is a common denominator of EASA and SESAR. EASA will also perform ‘safety advice’ on SESAR deliverables. Along which parameters will this advice be elaborated?

These advices will be elaborated in strict compliance with the existing regulations. EASA will also propose to SESAR to comply in advance with the coming regulations. In all cases, these advices will focus on practicality, without any compromise being made in the field of safety.

4.) In general, what is your view on the new technical developments coming from SESAR?

EASA is looking forward to those technical developments, in particular to the total system approach fully integrating the ground, space and airborne segments for seamless, safe and efficient aviation operations.