[SystemSafety] Comparison of Confidential vs Non-Confidential Reporting Systems

[Pekka Pihlajasaari]

Alvery

Perhaps 1 failure in 10^5 opportunities is really the best that medicine can currently provide. There is enormous incentive to develop safer protocols (and highly priced drugs) that could improve this by several orders of magnitude. 

Given the way in which funding treatment is divorced from the decision making of doctors, It is easy to see that any surgeon/anaesthesiologist team that could reduce the likelihood of failure would prescribe drugs 100 times more expensive to be able to push the success rate.

It seems more likely that electro-mechanical systems are more amenable to improvement, and flying easier, than complications in major surgical procedures.

After all, mortality from amputations were the range 45%-15% in the latter half of the nineteenth century as the understanding of sepsis from Lister were disseminated. The substantial improvement since then suggests that surgeons are as keen as pilots to improve the success rate of their procedures.

Regards
Pekka Pihlajasaari
--
pekka at data.co.za	Data Abstraction (Pty) Ltd	+27 11 484 9664
--
http://jameslindlibrary.org/wp-data/uploads/2016/07/J-R-Soc-Med-2015-07-Tröhler-280-7.pdf


-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety <systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> On Behalf Of Grazebrook, Alvery AN
Sent: 17 October 2018 15:49
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Comparison of Confidential vs Non-Confidential Reporting Systems

There's another layer to it as well - from society's perspective: the visibility and nature of the victims of accidents. Aircraft accidents are very visible, and the people who are impacted by accidents tend to be wealthy. I'm sure some of the biases mentioned in the "Bounded rationality or ignorance?" thread come in to play as well. The end result is that there is far greater social pressure to achieve safety for aircraft than in mining or shipping for example. 

The result is that aircraft industry has a very broad safety culture, spreading across the aircraft manufacturers, the airline operators and the government authorities. The breadth I think enables working practices (such as reporting) that would be difficult to sustain in a more fragmented safety culture in other sectors. 

As a comparison, I was very surprised by the personal risk associated with medical procedures that are accepted as normal and the risk associated with flying - In medicine it appears to be accepted that the safest procedure under general anaesthesia will have a 1 in 10^5 risk of complications resulting in death, whereas taking a flight is around 1 in 10^9. You could take 10 flights a year for your entire life and still carry much less risk than a single operation. It's hard to tell whether society has its priority straight on this. 

Cheers,
	Alvery

** note: these opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer

-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Robert P. Schaefer
Sent: 17 October 2018 2:10 PM
To: Tim Schürmann
Cc: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Comparison of Confidential vs Non-Confidential Reporting Systems

I’m thinking historical reasons, from a Lindbergh biography by A. Scott Berg I read years ago. 
Aviation in the US was funded by the government for air mail. To save money Inexperienced army pilots were recruited and started dying from accidents in high numbers. Lindbergh, promoting flight safety called out president FDR’s actions as the cause for their deaths. Safety regulations then came into force, but by making FDR angry, Lindbergh (an ex-Army pilot and also an America First-er) was prevented from re-enlisting as an officer during WWII.

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 8:59 AM, Tim Schürmann <tschuerm at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> On 17.10.2018 14:49, Mike Rothon wrote:
>> [...]
>> 
>> In general, I am trying to understand why it is considered to be 
>> beneficial for aviation, but not necessarily elsewhere.
>> [...]
> One reason might be:
> There is only one "safe state" for aviation: "Not Flying/Moving", 
> while other industries have more possible "exits" in case of a safety event.
> 
> Just my 2 Cents..
> Maybe someone with more experience could enlighten me? ;)
> 
> 
> Kind regards
> Tim
> _______________________________________________
> The System Safety Mailing List
> systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE

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