ICAO Safety Management Manual Risk Model
The ICAO Safety Management Manual (Doc 9859) contains comprehensive guidance for both
industry and regulators on the subject of risk assessment. This guide will not reproduce large parts
in this document, but it is useful to consider the basic elements of safety risk mitigation as it applies
to lithium batteries.
A risk assessment seeks to identify potential hazards (what could happen) and consider the
likelihood of them happening. This will give us the “risk” and by identifying these risks, it is possible
to determine mitigation strategies to reduce them to an acceptable level. As with any risk
assessment, the starting point is to determine the potential severity, or the “ultimate consequence”,
of a lithium battery catching fire. ICAO provides the following “Severity Table”: