Feedback on my safety management system article in AIN’s March 2011 issue exhibits the mixed feelings that business aviation users continue to have on the subject of SMS. One of the elements of the article that readers didn't like is the photo of the Citation CJ2 that ran off the runway at Atlantic City's Bader Field on May 15, 2005. The obvious conclusion, these readers say, is that no SMS would have prevented that accident.
"Right on page 36," wrote pilot Terry Walby, “there is a picture of a Citation jet that overran the runway with the caption that reads, ‘…could have benefited from a Safety Management System.’ Really? Tell me what steps in the SMS risk assessment procedure would have prevented that accident?”
Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at AIN Media Group, has been flying since 1975 and writing about aviation since 1978 and now has the best job in the world, running editorial operations for Aviation International News, Business Jet Traveler, and FutureFlight.aero. In addition to working as an A&P mechanic on everything from Piper Cubs to turboprops, Matt taught flying at his father’s flight school in Plymouth, Mass., in the early 1980s, flew for an aircraft owner/pilot, and for two summer seasons hunted swordfish near the George’s Banks off the East Coast from a Piper Super Cub. An ATP certificated fixed-wing pilot and CFII and commercial helicopter pilot, Matt is type-rated in the Citation 500 and Gulfstream V/550. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Matt and his team cover the entire aviation scene including business aircraft, helicopters, avionics, safety, manufacturing, charter, fractionals, technology, air transport, advanced air mobility, defense, and other subjects of interest to AIN, BJT, and FutureFlight readers.
