18th December 2009
Response from the Safety and Reliability Society to the Haddon-Cave Review into loss of Nimrod XV230
The Safety and Reliability Society welcomes publication of the Haddon-Cave Review into the circumstances surrounding the catastrophic loss of Nimrod XV230. The Society’s members’ thoughts and condolences are with the families of the 14 service personnel who tragically lost their lives in the accident. The Society also welcomes the announcement by the Defence Secretary of the creation of a new military airworthiness body in the wake of the tragedy.
The Society is working with other professional bodies to improve safety engineering standards and notes that Recommendation 28.4 of the Nimrod Review calls for improvements in professional safety engineering and Safety Case regimes. The Society notes that compliance with its Professional Code of Conduct could have avoided the shortfalls in professional and ethical standards criticised in the Review.
The Development Director for the Society said, “Given the significance of the tragic loss of 14 lives, the Society hopes that this Review will be the stimulus for improving the MOD’s safety culture to one that our Armed Forces deserve and that it will help shape improvements in wider society. The Society notes that the most radical reform to MOD's airworthiness procedures since military aviation began is now underway. The Society also notes the MOD’s observation that Mr Haddon-Cave's principles and his proposals regarding safety culture have a resonance beyond aviation and we are now looking at their applicability more widely beyond the MOD and that this matches with the Society’s continued endeavours to work as a cross-industry Professional Body.”
The Society will release a fuller analysis of the Review in due course following consultation with other engineering and professional bodies. This will highlight the salient points of the Review and explore parallels with previous disasters from other industries and will be published in the Society’s technical journal and website. In order to institutionalise such important lessons across all sectors the Society wishes to work with all ECUK registered engineering bodies and other professional bodies with an interest in safety, as well as the organisations affected by the report.
The Council of the Society calls on these bodies to join forces with it to help focus leadership in this field, to collaborate with us in defining what Professionalism means, to agree what key knowledge all practitioners within our field should hold and to clearly define the levels of competence necessary to practise.
Please contact the SaRS office info@sars.org.uk for further editorial details