This page contains a couple of columns that are written for the KNVvL magazine: “All Clear”. The following titels are available:
Safety I and Safety II
(‘All Clear’ October 2018)
“The mind is like a parachute. It will only work when it is open.”
(Frank Zappa)
During trainings, I notice that people are used to seeing safety as an absence of danger or threat; a situation or action where nothing goes wrong; or at least a situation where as little as possible goes wrong. Safety is: not getting hurt, not being able to fall, slip, not being able to lose your job, etc; in short, ‘safe’ is a situation in which something (negative) should not or cannot happen.
‘Safety is the freedom from accidental injury’
(U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
‘Safety is the state in which harm to persons or of property damage is reduced to, and maintained at or below, an acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management’
(International Civil Aviation Organization)
It is understandable that people focus on things that could go wrong; it is unexpected and undesirable for something to go wrong, it can actually damage us. For centuries, misshaps are being seen as ‘God’s hand’, or an ‘act of Nature’, as something over which we humans had no control…….
continue to read
It’s safe, but it won’t get any safer
(‘All Clear’ August 2024)
A small plane crashed on the A58 near Roosendaal (NL) on Wednesday. The pilot was killed. Many more have gone wrong recently. How safe is small aviation?
“That there have been so many incidents recently worries us,” says Rademaker [representing the AOPA]. “Although I am not saying that small aviation is unsafe…” There are also concerns among the Infrastructure and Transport Ministry’s Environment and Transport Inspectorate (IL&T). This is partly reflected in the “Status of the [Dutch] Aviation 2023” report published in April 2024. The number of serious incidents and accidents in small aviation “is not structurally declining”. Fatal accidents also occurred in 2023.
The sub-headline and a quote from an article by Johannes Visscher published on 3 August in the ‘Reformatorisch Dagblad’. The article goes on to describe one of the conclusions from an OvV investigation: ‘Main causes of accidents in small aviation are “lack of flying skills” and inability to assess risks…’