Is a FRAT Undermining Your Safety Efforts?

A basic flight risk assessment tool (FRAT), part of most safety management systems (SMS) today, might on the surface appear to be the best way to prevent accidents, but Air Safety Group president Jeff Whitman points out the risk factors assessed by a FRAT can vary significantly between operators and so cannot be relied up alone to make a “go/no-go” call.

A FRAT assigns a hazard and its potential consequences a number–often between 1 and 5–that can help an operator better understand the flight as the risks and the hazard totals increase. While a short runway might represent a 3.5 on its own, that final number could grow when it’s added in with the risks of a low-time pilots (4), poor weather (4.5) and an unfamiliar airport (4.5) or about 16 points in total. A “4” at one company of relatively young pilots might only represent a 2.5 at another operation. That means a FRAT total of 20, for example, might be risky for one crew, and not so much for another.

The best FRATs take the individual components of a flight department into account, said Whitman. He said the key is the data analysis and precisely how a flight department chooses to mitigate the risks when those FRAT totals rise.