Safety auditing is a core safety management activity, providing a means of identifying potential problems before they have an impact on safety.
Safety regulatory audit means a systematic and independent examination conducted by, or on behalf of, a national supervisory authority to determine whether complete safety-related arrangements or elements.
Safety audits are conducted in order to assess the degree of compliance with the applicable safety regulatory requirements.
Safety auditing is an element of safety management which subjects the activities of airline operators/service providers to a systematic critical evaluation.
An audit may include one or more components of the total system, such as safety policy, change management, SMS as a whole, operating procedures, emergency procedures, etc.
The aim is to disclose the strengths and weaknesses, to identify areas of non-tolerable risk and devise rectification measures. The outcome of the audit will be a report, followed by an action plan prepared by the audited organisation and approved by the regulator/supervisory authority.