Safe Working at the Facility
Health and Safety Policy
FAAM’s health and safety policy follows that of its host institution – The University of Leeds. The University’s policy lays down the intent, organisation and arrangements that are in place to ensure health and safety within the organisation and for other parties who might be affected by its activities.
The University’s policy applies to all activities undertaken by FAAM, further details can be found in their Health and Safety Policy. FAAM also maintains local policies specific to working at FAAM, both on the ground and in the air.
FAAM Expectations
FAAM’s Stakeholder Enterprise
FAAM is supported by several organisations with legal or regulatory requirements and responsibilities as part of its mission. FAAM engages with its stakeholders to incorporate these requirements into its safe working practices, and passes on a number of expectations to its users. Access to the aircraft and to its maintenance environment will be contingent on users following the relevant policies, and user organisations providing appropriate support.
FAAM’s Users
Users of the facility are expected to engage with FAAM’s H&S management, and will also be expected to ensure that, where appropriate, their employers are made aware of their activities and support their use of the facility. Broadly speaking users will be expected to follow the same expectations as those followed by FAAM (University of Leeds) staff, which can be found here.
Risk Assessments and Safe Working Procedures
FAAM maintains safe systems of work for users for a number of core activities:
Science flying on the aircraft
Working in FAAM’s Hangar space
Ground working on the aircraft
Working in FAAM’s Laboratory
Working in FAAM’s offices
These are made available via the FAAM website here.
Users may be asked to provide their own risk assessment and procedures when visiting the facility, depending on the activities that they undertake.
Fieldwork
FAAM follows the University of Leeds Fieldwork policy (as well as the NCAS Inclusive Fieldwork Guide) and completes a risk assessment for all projects undertaken with the aircraft and project teams where they are based away from its home base (Cranfield, UK). These may be supported by external country/region-specific advice or assessments, and for most deployments FAAM will conduct a short pre-deployment visit to assess both the fitness of local arrangements as well as the value, suitability and safety of the local services.
Incident Reporting
FAAM is committed to minimising incidents and learning from them, and follows University of Leeds guidance on reporting and investigating incidents, supported by the University faculty.
External users may not be able to report directly into the University of Leeds reporting system, so a separate system has been set up at FAAM to facilitate the capture of incidents. This enables FAAM to constructively recognise and deal with safety-related issues within its operation. This can be accessed here.
FAAM Support and Training
FAAM will use its application processes, visitor access forms, field project and science flying processes to identify safety-related training that may be required. Examples include the User Induction given to all new facility visitors, training modules that may be sent to a user as part of the Airtask (flight) pass issue, or Cranfield airside access. This training provides users with essential information for safe working at the facility, and the facility expects users to participate positively to maximise the benefits of this training.