Safety Considerations in Political Decisions: A Case Study of Changes to the Norwegian Aviation System

Following the international deregulation act of 1994, the structure of the Norwegian aviation system has undergone several important changes. This paper describes the terms dictated by the political environment and the different administrations for implementing the changes. Our analysis addresses the inclusion of safety considerations in the specific decisions, and questions whether safety evaluations have had any impact on the change processes. The changes included the restructuring of airlines, new terms of competition, regulatory changes, the separation and relocation of the civil aviation authority, and privatization and efficiency reforms in the new infrastructure company. Safety in aviation and the risk of aviation accidents were not issues that featured prominently during the early change management processes. These aspects were first considered when the parties realized that changes were imminent and conflicts began to emerge. The different parties involved used the safety concept in various ways to legitimize or counteract changes. Our analysis concludes that risk is a complex concept that is difficult to communicate in a rational political decision process, but the emotive element in the risk concept opens for political speculations that facilitate discussion of ethical responsibilities. Copyright 2010 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Quantitative grounding risk assessment and management

Grounding is a phenomenon in which the bottom part of a structural system, such as a ship, offshore platform, automobile, or aircraft, is accidentally damaged. Three types of grounding accidents are relevant, namely grounding, stranding, and squatting (as described in Chap. 1). As far as ship grounding is concerned, the first type usually occurs due to navigational errors associated with failures in the process of passage planning and piloting and nautical charts with out-of-date data. Stranding in the shipping industry happens when a ship is swept away by waves and tides as its engine power fails, where bottom structures are damaged on a rock near shore by vertical loading due to the difference between buoyancy and weight in ebb tide. Squatting may happen in ships operating in shallow waterways. In the aviation industry, grounding can occur upon landing when the landing gear system is malfunctional. This chapter describes the quantitative risk assessment and management of grounding accidents, with a focus on the first type of ship grounding. The methods are described in association with the shipping industry, but can be applied to other types of structural systems in grounding