Safety Focus: What is a Hazard?

There has been a lot of discourse as of late regarding Safety Management Systems (SMS) and how implementing an SMS can prevent accidents and improve overall safety. One of the key components of an SMS is having a process in place to identify hazards to your operation.

So, what is a hazard? As per ICAO, a hazard is a condition or an object with the potential to cause or contribute to an aircraft incident or accident. You may have noted from this definition that there are numerous hazards to aviation, ranging from aircraft-related hazards (aircraft defects, system malfunction, etc) to human-related hazards (fatigue, illness, etc), object-related hazards (foreign object debris, unsecured cargo on the aircraft, etc) to environmental hazards (bad weather, bird/animal strikes, etc).

Hazard vs Risk vs Occurrence

A hazard has the potential to cause an accident or incident, so nothing has occurred yet.

Risk is the likelihood of the accident or incident occurring combined with the severity of its consequences.

However, an occurrence is an event, either an incident or an accident that has already occurred.

Example of Hazard vs Risk vs Occurrence

Hazard	Pool of water on the floor
Risk	Likelihood of someone slipping and getting hurt
Occurrence	A person slipped and hurt their back

Is it possible to identify ALL hazards to your operation? No, this isn’t feasible considering the level of complexity and dynamic nature of air operations. However, implementing reactive, proactive, and predictive methods to hazard identification aids the organization in identifying and understanding most of the hazards in its operation, enabling it to make data-driven decisions to make its operations safer.

Methods for Hazard Identification (This list is not exhaustive)

Reactive	Hazard Reporting Systems and Investigation of occurrences.
Proactive	Risk Assessments, Change Management, Audits, Surveys/Polls. Drills/Exercises, or scenario-based trainings.
Predictive	Data analysis of occurrences, maintenance logs, flight data, etc., to identify negative safety trends.

Once a hazard is identified, the risk management process kicks in. Risk Management is a decision-making process in which the degree of risk posed by a hazard is assessed to determine the level of safety control(s) required.

Safety controls can be applied to mitigate, eliminate, transfer, or accept the risk; this depends on the level of risk posed by the hazard and the level of risk the organization can accept (Risk tolerance) to run a safe operation.

Having the entire process of Hazard Identification + Risk Management recorded enables the operator to share hazard information with key stakeholders, thereby improving the robustness of safety controls applied, which aids in measuring the effectiveness of your SMS!