Patterns In Safety Thinking A Literature Guide to Air Transportation Safety

Safety is more than the absence of accidents. Safety has the goal of transforming the levels of risk that are inherent in all human activity, while its interdisciplinary nature extends its influence far into most corporate management and government regulatory actions. Yet few engineers have attended a safety course, conference or even a lecture in the area, suggesting that those responsible for the safe construction and operation of complex high-risk socio-technical systems are inadequately prepared. This book is designed to meet the expressed needs of aviation safety management trainees for a practical and concise education supplement to the safety literature. Written in a highly readable and accessible style, its features include: ¢ detailed analysis of the forward-looking System Safety approach, with its focus on accident prevention; ¢ classification of transportation safety literature into distinct schools of thought (Tort Law, Reliability Engineering, System Safety Engineering); ¢ real world, practical, illustrations of the theory; ¢ the history, theory and practice of safety management ; ¢ inter-disciplinary thinking about safety . The flying public is faced with a bewildering array of aviation safety data from a diverse and ever increasing number of sources. This book is an essential guide to the available information, and a major contribution to the international public debate on aviation safety.

Contents: Introduction; Transportation Tort law school; Reliability engineering school; System safety engineering school; Conclusion; Bibliography.

Geoffrey R. McIntyre is currently with the Federal Aviation Administration* (FAA) in the Office of the Assistant Administrator for System Safety, System Safety Engineering and Analysis Division. Prior to that he worked in research and development with various agencies of the US Department of Transportation, as a part-time lecturer in Public Administration at the George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and as a guest lecturer at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He has a PhD in Public Administration/Transportation from New York University. *The views expressed in this book are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the FAA***