All engineers and pilots should be safety literate. With the aim of contributing to that goal, I regularly write about all things system safety.
Whenever a high-profile accident occurs, a lot of ill-informed commentary appears in the media, including otherwise reliable news channels. In this article, I offer my thoughts on how to avoid the pitfalls associated with this harmful trend, following recent events in South Korea. BackgroundOn 29 December 2024, a Jeju Air...
A large part of public relations (PR) management is about prevention. PR advisors focus on the worst possible outcome and try everything in their power to change perceptions before bad things happen. The main difference between system safety and PR is the key objective: while PR management is there to...
The complexity of each new generation of commercial or military aircraft is growing exponentially due to an ever-increasing demand for new functionality. Software offers the least cost option to implement new functions in modern aerospace systems. As a result, software complexity has grown beyond human comprehension. This article offers my...
“Dangerous accidents lie in the system, not in the components. (Perrow, 1984)” Learning from experience is a critical element in system safety. In this blog post, I will revisit the impact of safety culture on what response can be expected from an organisation when a major accident happens. More specifically,...
In aviation circles, the Grumman F-11 Tiger is known as a capable carrier-based fighter aircraft, the second operational jet in US Navy service that could fly faster than the speed of sound. In popular culture, it is better known as one of the first types flown by the Blue Angels...
