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Safety Management Systems

This category contains 53 posts

New Safety Management Systems (SMS) Rule

The new Safety Management Systems (SMS) regulation will be published on Friday April 26. A pre-publication version of the rule is currently available for inspection. The new regulation will expand the applicability of FAA’s SMS rule to include type certificate (TC) holders and production certificate (PC) holders. It will also expand the scope to include … Continue reading

MARPA Files Formal Comments on Safety Management and on Systems Safety

MARPA has filed formal comments on two recent rulemaking activities: SMS and Systems Safety. In both cases, the comments are intended to improve the rules and make them more useful to protect safety in the global aviation system. Continue reading

Should Safety Management Systems Apply to PMA?

The deadline for Safety Management Systems (SMS) comments is coming soon. One key question asked in the FAA proposal is whether the SMS rules should be applied to PMA holders. Continue reading

The FAA SMS Rule is Here

The FAA will publish its Safety Management Systems (“SMS”) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) in tomorrow’s Federal Register. This long-awaited proposed rule has been scaled back from the original scope (manufactures and maintenance organizations) and only appears to apply to: There will be an exception for production certificates that are based purely on a supplemental … Continue reading

Safety Management Systems Update (for Manufacturers)

Safety Management Systems (SMS) is being adopted as a standard practice across the manufacturing industry. We will be discussing SMS at the Annual Conference in November. This is a review of the status of SMS regulations for manufacturers in some jurisdictions. United States The FAA is expected to take their existing SMS rule (which applies … Continue reading

MARPA COS Revision 4 Available for Member Comment

Over the past several months the MARPA COS Committee has hunkered down and collaborated to update the MARPA COS guidance material. Last updated in 2014, the Continued Operational Safety guidance was due for a review and an update to ensure the guidance reflects current industry best practices. As an industry, we have an obligation not … Continue reading

COS/SMS Case Study: PW4000 112” Fan Blade Failures

COS/SMS Case Study by Steve Szpunar, MARPA Safety Committee Chairman – PW4000 112” Fan Blade Failures Continue reading

EASA Continues the SMS Process

EASA has taken the next step toward implementing a Safety Management Systems (SMS) rule for manufacturers and repair stations. EASA proposed SMS Opinion 04/2020 to the European Commission, today. Under that opinion. EASA proposes to modify the EU aviation manufacturing regulation, and the EU aviation maintenance regulation, in order to incorporate SMS. Continue reading

Challenges Apparent in Reconciling Performance Based Regulations and Emerging Technologies

MARPA had the opportunity this week to attend the 2016 FAA-EASA International Aviation Safety Conference that was held in Washington, DC. The conference provides an opportunity for the regulatory agencies and industry to get together to discuss emerging issues in aviation safety and strengthen the cooperation between both the regulators themselves as well as the … Continue reading

The 21st Century Model of Certification

The FAA is talking very seriously about a radical new model of certification for the aerospace industry focusing on approval of design processes and risk-based oversight. The FAA would like to introduce this new model at the 2015 MARPA Conference. This could reflect a tremendous opportunity for members to be on the cutting edge of the new compliance paradigm. Continue reading