Aviation Safety Program Manual (ASPM) for Civil Aviation Directorates

A State shall establish, document, implement, maintain and continually improve the Civil Aviation Safety Program.

Safety Management Systems (SMS) improve systems and procedures to maximize the safety of aviation operations. Nevertheless, a SMS is directed towards external stakeholders and not Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA), which operate under a similar model called the Integrated Management System (IMS) to reach management excellence and continuous improvement. In simplistic terms, an IMS has been compared to an internal SMS for a State CAA.

There are eight Critical Elements (CE) underpinning State Safety Oversight (SSO) wherein, collectively, the CEs of an SSO system constitute the foundation of the State Safety Program (SSP) by integrating with the SSP framework elements.

Integral to the National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) is the Aviation Safety Program (ASP) and SSP Documentation, forefront of which is the is the Aviation Safety Program Manual. This document provides the formal overview of the State’s ASP, specific to the Authority's Program activity structure, Aviation Safety Regulatory Framework and Aviation Safety Oversight.

Therefore, a State's requirement to formally document the management system is achieved via SSP Documentation. The Aviation Safety Program Manual provides formal reference for the ASP`s scope and description, key services of the management system, documented procedures and/or reference to them, and a description of the interaction between the processes within the management system.