O-178 Review of Munitions Safety Processes within MSIAC Nations

September 2018

Martin Pope

This Study was agreed by the MSIAC Steering Committee (SC) to support their need to have access to an independent, comparative review of approaches to Ageing and Life Assessment of Munitions across a representative number of (MSIAC) nations. The expected benefits of the study included:

Increased understanding of other national S3 processes.
An opportunity to highlight and understand differences in approaches.
An opportunity to benchmark own national S3 process with other MSIAC nations.
An opportunity to determine best practice.

The process used a questionnaire to get initial inputs to support the Study. The Questionnaire was developed and refined using subject matter experts. This input was used as a guide for other nations in understanding the required level of detail. Some information was garnered through this approach, but to achieve the goal of this project interviews with national subject matter experts were also required.

The Questionnaires covered the following topics:

Policy and Regulation.
Risk Acceptance.
Approach to applying the S3 requirements by acquisition route:
Munition Safety Assessment aspects:
National organisations involved in the S3 process.
Divisions of responsibility between the organisations.
The routine S3 process.
How this fits within the overall risk assessment and management process.
How exceptions, such as urgent requirements are dealt with.

A case study was also undertaken to define an ideal safety management system. It examined the crash and loss of a UK Nimrod surveillance aircraft in Afghanistan in 2006. This had the advantages of not being in the weapons systems domain and the subsequent enquiry and report were independent of Defence. It assessed safety failings from the basis of national legislation, Defence policy and regulation, as well as failings of individuals.