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The Safety Management System requires a structured Risk Management Process to be effective. In the technical fields where numerous potentially catastrophic risks exist, processes and procedures need to account not only for the hardware random failures but also of human errors. The technology has progressed to the point where the predominant safety risks are not so much the machine failures but that of the human interaction. Accidents are rarely the result of a single cause but of a number of latent contributing factors that when combined result in the accident. In the Aerospace industry, the operational risk to the fleet is assessed by the manufacturer and the operator independently and is used in safety and/or regulatory decision-making.

The Safety Management System (SMS) provides an environment where undesired events (proactively or reactively identified) are evaluated for the effect on safety using Risk Analysis. When the risk is evaluated, an interim risk reduction (mitigating action) may be applied to reduce the risk to a level that allows operations for a longer period before the safety issue is fully resolved. The risk assessment provides a means of evaluating the risk level and it may be difficult to quantify the “benefit” of interim mitigations that will reduce the risk. Prioritization of issues in the same risk category of the Risk Matrix is often simplified to a schedule and logistics basis of the final corrective action and often does not adequately show the benefit of the interim mitigating actions taken.