African Journal of Business Management Vol.5 (5), pp. 1942-1950, 4 March, 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM DOI: 10.5897/AJBM10.1211 ISSN 1993-8233 ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper An approach to Safety Management System (SMS) implementation in aircraft operations Olja Čokorilo*, Petar Mirosavljević, Slobodan Gvozdenović Department of Air Transport, Faculty of Traffic and Transport Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Accepted 18 November, 2010 Each year a large number of approach and landing accidents occur worldwide. Safety statistics of commercial airline operators show that on average there is almost one occurrence every week. Each year there is also a number of approaches and landing accidents that resulted in third party damage and injuries on the ground. To operators it is therefore interesting to know how big their risk is and what possible actions could be taken to reduce this risk. The paper defines analytical tool intended to provide a sound, technically justifiable and consistent approach to analyzing the risk posed by an aircraft crash into a facility of importance during the approach and landing phase. This analytical approach is applicable to passenger terminals, Air Traffic Control (ATC) control towers, all facilities containing dangerous goods, etc. Presented methodology takes into consideration items determined to be important to understanding the risk from aircraft crash into certain facilities: number of aircraft operations/flights; crash probabilities; aircraft characteristics; facility characteristics; crash impact and facility damage. The simple case for airport with one runway was chosen. The result gives two risk roses (contours) for each threshold where each of them determines different risk zones on airport vicinity. Key words: Safety management system, risk, aircraft, landing. INTRODUCTION The paper defines analytical tool intended to provide a sound, technically justifiable, and consistent approach to analyzing the risk posed by an aircraft crash into a facility of importance. This analytical approach is applicable to passenger terminals, ATC control towers, all facilities containing significant quantities of radioactive or hazardous chemical materials, gasoline, etc. It could be used through Safety Management System (SMS) implementation process as a risk measurement tool for new investments at the airport according to building location planning. Safety issues were first investigated in the transportation management literature (Foreman, 1993; Males, 2007; McLeod and Vingilis, 2008; Min et al., *Corresponding author. E-mail: oljav@sf.bg.ac.rs. Tel: 381 63 37 87 55. 2010; Wagenaar et al., 2007). This article attempts to go further than the above reviewed research by analyzing major events during the approach and landing phase, which is the most critical flight phase in aircraft operations. Figure 1 presents statistical information regarding the flight phases (FSF, 2010). The number of fatal hull-loss accidents per year is given. The figure includes corporate jet and military transport accidents. SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (SMS) IN AVIATION To improve on existing levels of aviation safety in the light of the continuing growth of the industry, additional mea- sures are needed. One such measure is to encourage individual operators to introduce their own SMS. Such a system is as important to business survival as a financial management system and the implementation