A Part 5 Safety Management System, Built Into Operations
Part 5 Safety Management System (SMS) & Flight Risk Assessment is part of AviationAlley. Under 14 CFR Part 5, a growing number of operators have to run a real Safety Management System — four pillars, documented risk decisions, a working hazard-reporting culture, and evidence they can show the FAA. Most try to do it in a binder of policies, a shared spreadsheet of open hazards, and a paper FRAT card pilots fill out before a flight and nobody ever sees again. AviationAlley is aviation safety management system SMS software designed so the four Part 5 pillars, confidential reporting, a 5x5 risk matrix, a deterministic flight-risk score, and fatigue reporting all live in one connected system of record — not scattered across documents that drift out of date. AviationAlley is pre-launch, opening to a founding cohort of operators; this is the safety layer being built with that cohort, not a system already running in production. Everything here is rule-based and deterministic, not AI. Request early access to join the founding cohort.
The problem: an SMS that lives in binders and paper FRAT cards
14 CFR Part 5 asks for a complete Safety Management System: a documented safety policy with accountable-executive sign-off, a Safety Risk Management process that identifies hazards and analyzes their risk, Safety Assurance that monitors whether controls are working, and Safety Promotion that pushes training and communication out to the line.
When those four pillars live in separate Word documents, a hazard spreadsheet, and a stack of paper forms, no one can prove at a glance that the system is actually running.
The day-to-day evidence is the hardest part to keep. A pilot files a hazard report and it sits in an inbox. A FRAT card gets filled out before a flight, scored by hand, and thrown away — so there is no record of which flights ran elevated and what the crew did about it.
Safety performance indicators get talked about in a meeting but never tracked against a target. And when the POI shows up, the operator is reconstructing months of risk decisions from memory instead of opening a system that already holds them.
Fatigue makes it worse. Crews know when they are tired, but there is rarely a safe, low-friction way to say so, and even less of a way to turn that signal into a hazard the safety team actually sees.
The result is an SMS that exists on paper to satisfy the regulation, but doesn't change what happens on the line.
- Four Part 5 pillars spread across disconnected documents, with no single view of whether the system is conforming
- Hazard and ASAP reports filed by email or on paper, with no consistent risk scoring or lifecycle
- Paper FRAT cards scored by hand before a flight and discarded, leaving no record of elevated-risk flights
- Safety performance indicators discussed in meetings but never tracked against a target over time
- Audit findings from the POI, internal reviews, and FOQA tracked in separate places, if at all
- Crews have no low-friction, confidential way to report fatigue before it becomes a hazard
- Audit prep means reconstructing months of risk decisions instead of exporting them
How AviationAlley's SMS is built to work
AviationAlley is designed around the four Part 5 pillars as first-class objects, not checkbox fields. Safety Policy (Part 5 Subpart B), Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion each have a place in the system, and a Declaration-of-Compliance self-assessment is built to walk an operator through conformance — so the safety team can see where the SMS stands against the regulation instead of guessing.
The pillars connect to the live operation, so the policy isn't a document on a shelf and the assurance pillar reflects what is actually happening.
Reporting is built to be confidential and structured. ASAP, hazard, and SIRS reports each have their own kind, and every report is designed to move through a 5x5 risk matrix — severity by likelihood — so risk is scored the same way every time and tracked through a clear lifecycle from open to mitigated.
The FRAT (Flight Risk Assessment Tool) is a deterministic flight-risk scorer: it applies the operator's defined factors and thresholds to produce a consistent, explainable score, and that score is captured rather than thrown away with the card. It is a rule engine, not AI — the same inputs always produce the same result.
Safety Promotion and Assurance are designed to close the loop. Safety performance indicators are tracked on- or off-target so trends are visible over time, and read-and-acknowledge safety bulletins push critical information to crew with a record of who has acknowledged.
Audit findings from the FAA POI, internal reviews, and FOQA are tracked together by source. And fatigue self-reporting on the KSSS sleep scale is built to feed an anonymous hazard automatically and surface on a fatigue risk board that blends duty load with sleep and time-zone signals — deterministic throughout, so the board reflects defined rules, not a prediction.
- Four-pillar Part 5 structure — Safety Policy, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion as first-class parts of the system
- Declaration-of-Compliance self-assessment designed to walk an operator through Part 5 conformance
- ASAP, hazard, and SIRS confidential reports, each scored through a 5x5 severity-by-likelihood risk matrix with a clear lifecycle
- A deterministic FRAT flight-risk scorer that applies your factors and thresholds consistently — the score is captured, not discarded
- Safety performance indicators tracked on- or off-target, plus read-and-acknowledge safety bulletins with an acknowledgment record
- Audit findings tracked together by source — FAA POI, internal review, and FOQA
- Fatigue self-reporting on the KSSS sleep scale, designed to create an anonymous hazard and feed a fatigue risk board
What's included: one connected safety system of record
Safety is designed as part of the core AviationAlley platform, not a separate SMS module bolted on.
Because reporting, risk scoring, the FRAT, SPIs, bulletins, audit findings, and fatigue all live in the same system as scheduling, crew, and compliance, a hazard raised on the line and a FRAT run before a flight are built to become part of the same record an FAA evaluator would review — so audit preparation is meant to be an export rather than a months-long reconstruction.
Every engine here is deterministic and rule-based. The FRAT score, the 5x5 risk matrix, and the fatigue risk board all follow factors and thresholds the operator defines, so the same inputs always produce the same result and every output traces back to a named rule.
That is what makes the system reproducible in front of an inspector — not a black box, and not a prediction. AviationAlley is pre-launch and being built with a founding cohort, so this safety layer is something an early operator helps shape rather than a finished product running in production today.
- Part 5 four-pillar SMS — Safety Policy, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion, plus a Declaration-of-Compliance self-assessment
- Confidential ASAP, hazard, and SIRS reporting with a 5x5 severity-by-likelihood risk matrix and a clear open-to-mitigated lifecycle
- A deterministic, explainable FRAT flight-risk scorer whose score is captured on the record, not discarded with a paper card
- Safety performance indicators tracked against targets, plus read-and-acknowledge safety bulletins with an acknowledgment trail
- Audit findings consolidated by source — FAA POI, internal review, and FOQA
- KSSS fatigue self-reporting that creates an anonymous hazard and feeds a deterministic fatigue risk board
- One connected safety system of record, designed so audit prep is an export — built with a founding cohort, not yet running in production
Frequently asked questions
Is AviationAlley's SMS built for 14 CFR Part 5?
Yes. It is designed around the four Part 5 pillars — Safety Policy (Subpart B), Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance, and Safety Promotion — as first-class parts of the system, with a Declaration-of-Compliance self-assessment to help an operator walk through conformance. Note that AviationAlley is pre-launch and this safety layer is being built with a founding cohort, so it is not yet a system running in production.
Is the FRAT score AI-driven?
No. The FRAT (Flight Risk Assessment Tool) is a deterministic, rule-based scorer. It applies the operator's defined factors and thresholds, so the same inputs always produce the same score and every point traces back to a named factor — which is what makes it reproducible at an FAA audit. The 5x5 risk matrix and the fatigue risk board are deterministic in the same way, not predictions.
How does confidential safety reporting work?
ASAP, hazard, and SIRS reports each have their own kind and are designed to be confidential. Every report moves through a 5x5 risk matrix — severity by likelihood — so risk is scored consistently, and through a defined lifecycle from open to mitigated. Fatigue self-reports on the KSSS sleep scale are built to create an anonymous hazard automatically and surface on a fatigue risk board.