UAS: Safety Management Systems
What could be safer than placing your UAS on the shelf and not flying it? Of course, when the cat jumps up and knocks your expensive drone on the floor, we see that even the shelf has some level of risk. The simple idea of identifying and then attempting to avoid or reduce risk is used all around us every day. In UAS operations, we use Safety Management Systems (SMS) to identify hazards and mitigate risks in a proactive manner.
The UAS Safety Management Systems module is designed as an introduction to and overview of the SMS concept and how an SMS can enhance safety in UAS operations. The module is organized around the four core components of the SMS: Policy, Risk Management, Assurance, and Promotion and supplemented with information from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular (AC) 120-92B: Safety Management Systems; FAA-H-8083-30A: AMT General Handbook, Chapter 14; and FAA Information for Operators (InFO) 07015: Flight Risk Assessment Tool.