ORM in the real world

Flying Safety, Oct, 2003 by John Heib

These risk control options greatly reduce the risk to personnel during most hazardous operations involving the contract aircraft. Unfortunately, they are less effective during flying operations, specifically high-speed taxis, takeoffs and landings. The airport's FD's ARFF capability is insufficient to respond to something as small as a fire caused by a dragging brake, or as large as an aircraft catastrophic crash during takeoff or landing. The contract aircraft carried too much fuel and was just too large for one full-up ARFF vehicle to handle, or even 1 1/2 if you counted the CAV.

Implement Controls

The contractor and the APT had instituted the next step in the ORM process, implement controls. The risk decision here had already been made; flight operations were being conducted. The question is, were we accepting too high of a risk? Things are rarely black and white in the contracting world and the answer to that question is... it depends on how you look at it.

If we decided the risks were too high and ceased flight operations, wouldn't it follow that flying large aircraft into any field with only one ARFF vehicle should be discontinued immediately? What about fields with no ARFF capability? Clearly, we'd love to have adequate ARFF everywhere we operate. But it just ain't so, and we cannot stop aircraft operations everywhere there's a shortfall.

On the other hand, these flights aren't just routine delivery missions. They involve new and unproven aircraft. It is because of the inherently high risk involved in acceptance/functional check flights (ACF/FCF) that we hold contractors to a higher ARFF standard than found in the operational world.

Still, our risk level was higher than it should be. The contractor was failing to meet the "reasonableness" standard for ARFF where ACF/FCF missions are conducted. Both the contractor and the program office needed to begin taking steps to further reduce the risk level beyond what the administrative controls could accomplish. The contractor was going to have to get an additional ARFF vehicle.

Supervision

The last step in the ORM process. Conduct follow-up evaluations of the controls to ensure they remain in place and have the desired effect. Monitor for changes, which may require further ORM. Take corrective action when necessary. These are processes the APT does as a matter of routine.

Recommendations

The ORM team came up with the following long-term plan.

1. Continue with the administrative risk controls implemented for the hazardous operations identified earlier.

2. Have the airport FD aircraft familiarization training include aircrew evacuation exercises. These exercises would be conducted as safely as possible, with crewmembers extracted only as far as the cockpit steps.

3. The contractor would purchase an additional ARFF-capable vehicle. They would also train and equip their firefighters for ARFF response. The ARFF vehicle they planned to buy would still leave them about 1000 gallons short of the AFMCI 91-101 recommended level. But remember, 91-101 was not actually on contract. We were using it as guidance, not policy. Yet here they were, spending an awful lot of money and still missing the mark. AFMCI 91-101 may not be on contract now, but what about the future? We suggested the contractor submit a package for GFR review that would include: