ISASI 2008—TUTORIAL SESSIONS OVERVIEW

Again this year, as part of the ISASI Annual Seminar, the ISASI 2008 program will include two, one-day, pre-seminar tutorial sessions on Monday, September 8, 2008. The sessions will include briefings, discussions, and panels of experts to answer your challenging questions. The two tutorials will run concurrently and will follow this year’s seminar theme of "Investigation: The Art and the Science".

Tutorial #1: “Conducting Safety Investigations in a Safety
Management Systems (SMS) Environment”

As the aviation industry, worldwide, starts to embrace the concepts of SMS, many are still wondering whether this new approach (which includes confidential and non-punitive  reporting, fewer regulatory audits, and greater reliance on companies auditing themselves) will be beneficial in advancing safety, or will such an approach actually result in greater risks and potentially more accidents.

More important to ISASI members are the questions: “What will the impact of SMS be on safety investigations?” and, “How do we investigate under the shadow of SMS?”

To help answer these challenges, Tutorial #1 will be organized along the following lines:

• Session 1:
• What is SMS and how should it work?
• What are the benefits of implementing SMS?

• Session 2:
• What are the challenges to the industry in implementing SMS?
• Does SMS really work?

• Session 3
• What will the impact of SMS be on safety investigations?
• What are the investigator skills and knowledge required to investigate companies
  that are operating in an SMS environment?
• What information will be available from confidential safety information systems?

Tutorial #2: “Investigating General Aviation Accidents”

Traditionally, ISASI seminars focus on major investigations into accidents involving modern, large transport aircraft. The investigation of these events are facilitated by the many, on-board, crash-survivable recording devices; data readily available from air traffic services providers; copious amounts of hard-copy and electronic documents detailing almost every aspect of maintenance, operations, certification and regulatory oversight; and of course, the almost unlimited number of investigators from state investigation agencies, manufacturers, operators, and other subject-matter experts offering to help in the investigations.

ISASI truly believes that there are also very valuable lessons that can be leaned from investigating smaller accidents involving general aviation aircraft and helicopters. That is why ISASI has decided to devote an entire tutorial to this subject.

Tutorial #2 will be organized along the following lines:

• Session 1:
• Manufacturers’ safety mandate and how they achieve it.
• Balancing the safety mandate and product support mandates.
• Manufacturers’ tools and data that can be provided to safety investigations.
• Proposals that would enhance the effectiveness of investigations into general aviation accidents and serious incidents.

• Session 2:
• Safety board and regulator challenges in conducting general aviation       investigations.
• Investigating general aviation accidents in an environment where oversight is difficult.
• Difficulty in determining what happened when there are no CVRs and FDRs.
• What are the tried and true old investigation techniques?
• What are the new tools and investigation techniques?
• What are the challenge of influencing change in general aviation.

• Session 3:
• What are the lessons learned in general aviation investigations?
• What are the challenges facing general aviation investigations?
• How do we meet these challenges?

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