A committee of the Canadian Parliament is recommending that all of the country’s commercial aviation operators, including air taxi operators, be required to implement safety management systems (SMSs).
In a report issued this week, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities said that Transport Canada should pair the SMS requirement with more on-site safety inspections and use whistleblower reports and poor results from SMS audits “as a flag for prioritizing on-site inspections.”
The recommendations were among a number of proposals in the report, which followed the committee’s review earlier this year of the safety of the Canadian civil aviation system.
The government should ensure that SMSs are “accompanied by an effective, properly financed, adequately staffed system of regulatory oversight: monitoring, surveillance and enforcement supported by sufficient, appropriately trained staff,” the report said.
Canada was the first civil aviation authority in the world to order the use of SMSs, which have been required at the country’s major airlines and airport operators since 2008 and at air navigation service providers since 2009. Transport Canada is currently reviewing proposals to extend SMS requirements to other segments of the aviation industry.
