CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2019 shortlist announced

CANSO – the global and regional voice of air traffic management – has announced the shortlisted candidates for the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2019. The award is given to a company or team that has made a significant contribution to reducing aviation risk in the past 12 months.

Of 18 entries from across the industry, eight have been shortlisted. The winner will be announced at the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award Dinner during the CANSO Global ATM Safety Conference 2019 in Paris, France in November.

Larry Lachance, Vice President Safety and Quality, NAV CANADA and Chair of the CANSO Safety Standing Committee said: “The standard of entries for this year’s award have been fantastic. They are a showcase of innovation and ingenuity in ATM, and I would like to congratulate all who were nominated for their commitment and dedication to improving safety performance worldwide. I would particularly like to commend those individuals and organisations that have been shortlisted. We are truly honoured to recognise such brilliant work and I look forward to celebrating this success with you at the CANSO Global ATM Safety Conference 2019”.

The following nominees were chosen:

• Safety Management Team, Argentine Air Navigation Company (EANA S.E): Nominated for the great effort the safety team has devoted to enhancing EANA’s safety system. Due to this effort, EANA will have implemented all of its Safety Management System by the end of this year, a process that began in November 2018. During this process, Argentina also acquired an Integrated Quality and Safety Management System to enhance reporting, auditing, and risk analysis processes. Furthermore, EANA has developed a crisis room to be used as an information and coordination centre in the case of any declared crisis.
• Phil Binks, Head of ATM, Altitude Angel: As head of air traffic management at Altitude Angel, Mr. Binks has been nominated as the key driver behind the business launching the world’s first ‘Just Culture’ reporting system for drone pilots and operators. Emulating the approach that is already successfully established in manned aviation, where Mandatory Occurrence Reports (MOR) and Voluntary Occurrence Reports (VOR) are submitted following an incident, Altitude Angel has established a similar reporting system for drone pilots and operators to report an event.
• Yadira Lacot, Foreign Affairs Specialist, Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service, FAA: Nominated for leading a project to develop the CANSO Standard of Excellence in Safety Management Systems (SoE in SMS) maturity questionnaire for a Spanish-speaking audience. Ms. Lacot accepted the translation task as a volunteer project to help assist Spanish speaking ANSPs with measuring their SMS maturity levels. The outputs from this measurement enable ANSPs across the globe to progress towards full implementation of SMS.
• MARIA Project Team, NAV Portugal: Nominated for developing the Model of ATM Reality In Action (MARIA). Since 2012, a team from NAV Portugal has been systematically capturing information about their ATM system and compiling it in a model. This model covers both functions under the responsibility of an ANSP, the provision of safe services to the aviation community, and the external elements with which the ANSP interacts. The Model of ATM Reality In Action (MARIA) is now used for hazard identification, training, harmonisation, and safety assessments. This simplified view of the functional system has enhanced safety by allowing identification of change impact, making assessments more pragmatic and linked with everyday work, allowing re-use of previous work, and reducing the required effort.
• Salah Adam, ANS Safety Manager, Sudan Civil Aviation Authority: Nominated for improving safety and safety culture through awareness programmes, workshops, lectures, training sessions, formal awareness meetings, and pamphlets. The safety manager also formed safety action groups and a safety review board, explaining the terms of reference to each of them and making the required training available.
• Hitler Adkiny Olwenge, Manager of Air Traffic Services at Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority: Nominated for introducing reforms to the management of air traffic services, including training staff on the use of procedural design to assist in restructuring the airspace and redesign procedures; pioneering the implementation of safety audits of air traffic services for safety assurance; implementing collaborative decision-making to continually involve stakeholders in efficient use of Kenyan airspace; and providing training for staff in response to performance gaps.
• Aireon ALERT Team, North Atlantic Communications Centre: Nominated for launching the Aireon Aircraft Locating and Emergency Response Tracking (ALERT), aviation industry’s first and only free global emergency aircraft location service. ANSPs, commercial aircraft operators/airlines, regulators, and search and rescue organisations in need of crucial aircraft location data can rely on Aireon ALERT to help provide an ADS-B OUT 1090MHz–equipped aircraft’s most recently known position. As a free service, Aireon ALERT fills a critical need, ensuring that search and rescue personnel have the most accurate aircraft position data available when responding to an incident, regardless of global location.
• Tatiana Rueda, Technical Safety Manager, and Miguel Capote, ATM Safety Expert, INECO: Nominated for creating a Methodology for the Integration of Human Factors into Safety Assessments. Through a two-year innovation project, INECO developed a method to address the human element in safety assessments in order to make system design more fit for human needs. To achieve this, the team analysed and validated human factors methodologies and techniques that were not usually linked with safety studies, and extracted, simplified, and integrated them into our safety assessment process, making it applicable to any transport sector.