SMS records inside the platform that runs your operation
Luscinia keeps hazard and occurrence reporting, risk assessment workflows, safety communications, and the audit trail 14 CFR Part 5 requires alongside the trips, crews, and aircraft it already manages. The mandate is enforced for existing Part 135 certificates at the end of May 2027.
Compliance is enforced at the end of May 2027
The FAA extended Safety Management System requirements to Part 135 under 14 CFR Part 5. By the deadline the program has to exist, function, and leave records: hazard reports filed and reviewed, risks assessed, communications acknowledged. A binder written the month before won’t show a year of function.
The records Luscinia keeps
A program your inspector can follow: each of the four components evidenced, and every entry tied to the operation it came from.
- Hazard and occurrence reporting through configurable forms, with photos and signatures
- Risk assessment and approval workflows with status tracking to closure
- Safety communications distributed by role, acknowledged per person, timestamped
- Append-only audit trail: what was reported, who reviewed it, how it closed
- Reports tied to the real operation: the aircraft, the crew, the trip involved
- Everything exportable when the FAA asks
Starting from zero? We also build SMS programs as a consulting engagement: gap analysis, the manual, the processes, and the rollout, with Luscinia carrying the records. Read about SMS program development under regulatory compliance.
Questions operators ask
When does SMS become mandatory for Part 135?
The FAA's Part 5 rule extends Safety Management System requirements to Part 135 certificate holders, with compliance enforced at the end of May 2027 for existing operators. The program — and its records — need to exist before that date.
What records does 14 CFR Part 5 actually require?
Evidence that the four components exist and function: safety policy communicated and acknowledged, safety risk management performed on hazards, safety assurance through reporting and review, and safety promotion. In practice: hazard reports, risk assessments, follow-up records, and communications people verifiably received.
How does Luscinia keep SMS records?
Hazard and occurrence reporting through configurable forms with photos and signatures; approval workflows with status tracking; safety communications distributed by role and acknowledged per person with timestamps; and an append-only audit trail showing what was reported, reviewed, and closed.
Why keep SMS inside the operations platform instead of a separate SMS tool?
Because hazards come from operations. When the reporting lives where the trips, crews, and aircraft already are, a squawk, a duty conflict, or a ramp event becomes a safety record in one step — and the audit trail spans the whole story, not a disconnected system.
We have no SMS program at all. Where do we start?
Nightingale Skies also builds SMS programs as a consulting engagement: gap analysis, the manual, the processes, and the rollout — with Luscinia carrying the records. One conversation covers both.
Contact us
Tell us where your SMS program stands, from nothing on paper to a manual that needs records behind it. We reply within one business day.