Mapping safety assumptions across the European aviation industry

This paper describes the plans for a doctoral research project on the variations of safety assumptions across the aviation industry in Europe.An inventory of safety principles considered common to aviation will be compiled based on the literature and past research. Working-level exemplars of these principles will be generated based on an analysis of work methods and documentation. A survey will then be done across different branches of the aviation sector. This will allow us not only to test our hypothesis about the prevalence of these beliefs about safety, but also to identify any existing variations across the sector.This is an attempt to make the scientific paradigm underlying industrial safety work explicit, thus making it easier to question and easier to identify its limitations.