Presentation

Abstract

In the first three decades of the 21st century, the world's society has realized the influence and importance of safety and security as the foundations of sustainable development. Moreover, recent events and developments, especially the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the continual development of technology and global economic uncertainty, have indeed sharpened the problem of, among others, food safety and security, legal safety, land, and cyber security. The aviation industry is not immune to these developments, being inherently linked to all these safety and security dimensions. Thus, security and flight safety are of key strategic importance to the aviation industry, as accidents have the potential to affect customer choice and can severely impact an airline's business viability. For this reason, continual improvements are central to the growth and sustainability of the industry. According to Ascend ( 2017), fatal accident rate within the commercial aviation industry was 1 per 4.83 million flights in 2017, and the fatality rate was 1 per 900 million passengers carried. Despite being one of the safest sociotechnical systems ever developed (ICAO 2009), there is no such thing as absolute safety within aviation (De Florio 2016). In the years 2000-2010, Brazil witnessed its two deadliest accidents in history-Gol Airlines flight number 1907 on September 29, 2006 and TAM Airlines flight number 3054 on July 17, 2007-which generated the so-called Brazilian aviation crisis, exposing several vulnerabilities in the country's airline industry training and procedures, air traffic control and certification authorities' management mechanisms and associated dimensions (LABD 2007).Being one of the top 10 economies in the world, Brazil is an important player in the international aviation scenario. Two important aspects in this context are: (1) Embraer, its aircraft manufacturer, has consolidated itself as the world's third most important player in this industry, led by Airbus and Boeing Aircraft Company; (2) along with India and China, Brazil were expected to have most of world's air traffic growth in the next decades (5-7%), occupying the 5th place passengers' increase by 2034 in the pre-pandemic scenario (Forbes 2016).Brazil was one of the 52 nations to sign the Chicago's International Civil Aviation Convention on December 7, 1944 (ICAO 2022). In that same decade, the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (DCTA)'s educational, scientific and technological was conceived and started its activities in 1950, in São José dos Campos, São Paulo state. Fifty-four years after, in 2004, ITA's Congregation approved the creation of its first aviation safety course, PE-Safety, the Specialization Course in Aviation Safety and Continued Airworthiness. For the last 18 years, ITA has offered certificates to more than 705 specialists who are spread and working over all continents. PE-safety's implementation involved the contribution of high-experienced professionals in the aviation sect...