NOMIC Ramp · nomicramp.com · [email protected]
Ground handling safety: seeing where the risk is
Most of what is known about ground safety comes from incident reports, which show the rare bad day. Ground handling safety also depends on what happens on the thousands of ordinary turnarounds that go well. This page explains how to see that, and what the data shows.
The problems ground handlers are trying to prevent
- Damage to aircraft and ground equipment
- Irregular loads: freight or baggage loaded wrongly or not restrained
- Injuries to ground staff
- Near collisions between vehicles, equipment and aircraft
- Delays caused by ramp activity
Incident and damage reports record these after they happen. They do not show how close ordinary turnarounds came, or what teams did to keep them safe.
What watching normal turnarounds shows
In Normal Operations Monitoring, trained observers from the organisation's own ground operations watch everyday turnarounds without jeopardy. They record the threats the team meets, where work differs from the plan, and how the team manages it. In the NOMIC reference data, from over 1,300 observed turnarounds:
- About 86% of turnarounds had at least one threat, and about 91% had at least one variation. These are part of normal work.
- About 9% ended with an undesired state, such as an irregular load or a near collision.
- The threats seen most were other parties' vehicles driving on the bay (about 52% of turnarounds), equipment and aircraft serviceability (about 34%), foreign object debris (about 28%) and freight and baggage problems (about 23%).
- Some threats went with undesired states much more often than others. Freight and baggage problems went with about 3.7 times as many undesired states.
These are patterns, not proof of cause, and they come from one set of turnarounds. The reference dashboard lets you look at them by port type, aircraft size and stand.
Turning what you see into safety
Each cycle ends with changes chosen with the people who do the work. The next cycle shows whether the changes made the job easier. It adds to an organisation's safety management system, with data from normal work. It does not replace the system, an audit or a procedure. See how it fits and NOMIC Ramp and the safety management system.
Questions people ask
What are the main ground handling safety risks?
In the NOMIC reference data, the most common threats on turnarounds were other parties' vehicles driving on the bay, equipment and aircraft serviceability, foreign object debris, and freight and baggage problems. The most common outcomes to prevent are irregular loads, aircraft damage and near collisions.
How can a ground handler measure safety on normal days?
By observing normal turnarounds with trained peers, recording threats, variations and how the team manages them, and repeating it each cycle. That shows whether changes made to the way work is done are helping.
Is this the same as a safety audit?
No. An audit checks an organisation against a standard. Observation of normal work has no pass or fail: it shows how the work is really done. It can show where to look before the next audit. Read how it compares with LOSA, Ramp LOSA, GOSA and ISAGO.
Does it replace a safety management system?
No. It gives an existing safety management system data from normal work.