Your document management glossary

A safety manager is the individual an aviation organisation appoints to manage its Safety Management System (SMS) on a day-to-day basis. The role typically includes coordinating hazard identification and risk management, overseeing the safety reporting system, tracking corrective actions, and reporting on safety performance to senior management.

Regulators generally require the safety manager to be formally nominated and, in many frameworks, accepted by the authority before they can act in the role. CASA’s flight operations regulations transition, for example, required air transport and aerial work operators to nominate their safety manager as part of nominating their SMS to the regulator.

While the safety manager runs the SMS in practice, accountability for safety ultimately still sits with the organisation’s accountable executive — the safety manager provides the expertise and day-to-day oversight that makes that accountability meaningful.

Web Manuals gives safety managers a central place to manage reporting, track hazards and actions, and keep the SMS documentation audit-ready — making the day-to-day running of the SMS more manageable.