“How Do You Make Something Already Safe… Even Safer?
- Nicolás Rhoads
- May 27
- 7 min read
Season 2, Episode 10 | May 27th, 2026
Interview with Juan Carlos González Curzio
Executive Summary
In this episode of Altitude, Juan Carlos González Curzio — Vice President of Safety at Grupo Aeroméxico and former Chairman of SkyTeam’s Safety, Security & Quality Committee — discusses how aviation has evolved from a reactive industry into one driven by predictive safety management.
The conversation explores the transformation of aviation safety through accident investigation, Safety Management Systems (SMS), data-driven risk mitigation, and the growing importance of human factors in increasingly automated environments.
Key themes include:
Aviation as an inherently risky activity made safe through disciplined risk management.
The evolution from accident investigation to predictive safety and real-time operational monitoring.
The critical role of human factors, training, and decision-making in modern aviation safety.
The transition from Big Data to Smart Data through evidence-based training and operational analytics.
The importance of “Just Culture” in fostering transparency, trust, and proactive reporting within airlines.
Future safety advancements, including runway incursion prevention systems, enhanced traffic management integration, and predictive operational technologies.
The episode reinforces a central conclusion: aviation safety is not a final achievement, but a continuous process of learning, adaptation, and system-wide improvement.
ARTURO:
Hello everyone, and welcome to a new episode of Altitude.
Before we begin, I would like to send a very heartfelt embrace to our colleague and friend, Nicolás Rhoads, and to his entire family following the passing of his father, Mr. John Rhoads, which occurred just yesterday as we record this episode.
Life sometimes creates unexpected connections. Recently, Nico and I discovered that our parents had known each other many years ago through the stock exchange world. One of those coincidences that suddenly becomes deeply personal.
From all of us at Altitude — Daniel Saucedo, our producer, the entire team, and myself — we send our love and support to Nico, to Inés, and to the whole family.
Nico was originally scheduled to join us today, but naturally he is with his family. He is nonetheless with us in spirit.
And now, moving into today’s topic.
Today on Altitude, we are going to discuss something that sounds almost contradictory:
How do you make something safer when, statistically, it is already the safest mode of transportation in the world?
Because there is an important point people often forget:
Aviation was not born safe. In fact, aviation is inherently risky.
And to understand how that risk is managed, we have someone who has lived every side of that challenge.
Juan Carlos González Curzio — Boeing 787 Dreamliner Captain, more than 26,000 flight hours, instructor and examiner, currently Vice President of Safety at Grupo Aeroméxico, and until recently Chairman of SkyTeam’s Safety, Security and Quality Committee.
Juan Carlos, welcome.
JUAN CARLOS GONZÁLEZ CURZIO:
Thank you very much, Arturo.
First of all, I would also like to send my deepest condolences to Nicolás and his family. News like this always arrives unexpectedly, and I know how important his father was in his life.
A very sincere hug to Nico. He is greatly appreciated and deeply respected.
And regarding today’s subject — yes, it is an interesting contradiction.
People quickly say aviation is safe because statistically it is the safest means of transport in the world.
But aviation itself is not naturally safe.
If you really think about it, putting hundreds of people inside a metal structure, carrying fuel, flying at high altitude and high speed… there is nothing inherently safe about the concept itself.
What makes aviation safe is not the absence of risk. What makes aviation safe is the industry’s extraordinary ability to identify, measure, manage and mitigate risk every single day.
That is the difference.
Today we operate millions of flights globally with remarkable safety levels, but that is the result of decades of discipline, learning and system evolution.
ARTURO:
Exactly.
And if we look backwards, many of aviation’s greatest safety advances were born from tragic accidents.
After Tenerife, for example, the industry completely transformed cockpit communication and Crew Resource Management.
Then later you had events such as Air France 447, where the issue was not lack of technology, but rather how humans interacted with automation.
And more recently, the Boeing 737 MAX crisis, where the problem went far beyond technology — involving design philosophy, certification, training and organisational culture.
How does an accident like that change the way thousands of pilots and airlines operate?
JUAN CARLOS:
The first thing aviation learned is that risk must first be identified before it can be controlled.
Early aviation was reactive. Accidents occurred, investigations followed, and lessons were learned afterwards.
Over time, aviation evolved into something much more sophisticated.
Today, the industry understands that accidents are rarely caused by a single failure. Instead, they are usually the result of multiple layers aligning incorrectly.
Every major accident leaves behind lessons that permanently reshape the system.
And that evolution accelerated enormously once formal investigation methodologies appeared through ICAO and Annex 13, which established a structured global process for accident investigation.
The purpose of investigations is not punishment.
The purpose is understanding root causes and preventing recurrence.
That philosophy changed aviation forever.
Then technology added another layer.
The appearance of flight data recorders — the so-called “black boxes” — allowed investigators to reconstruct events with much greater precision.
What originally recorded only a few aircraft parameters eventually evolved into systems capable of generating enormous amounts of operational data.
And that changed safety from reactive to predictive.
ARTURO:
That is a critical shift.
Because before, safety improved after accidents.
Today, the goal is preventing accidents before they happen.
When does aviation make that transition from reaction to anticipation?
JUAN CARLOS:
The transition happens when the industry begins understanding that small events matter.
Near misses matter.
Minor deviations matter.
Small operational inconsistencies matter.
Because those small events are signals.
And once you begin collecting millions of operational data points, you can start identifying patterns.
That is where modern Safety Management Systems — SMS — emerge.
The industry moved from investigating accidents to continuously monitoring operational risk in real time.
Through Flight Data Monitoring, Flight Data Analysis, operational reports, and predictive risk models, airlines can now identify hazards before they become accidents.
Safety today is fundamentally based on risk management.
You evaluate probability, frequency and severity.
You assess potential consequences.
You apply mitigations.
And then you continuously measure whether those mitigations are effective.
It is essentially predicting the future inside a real operational environment.
ARTURO:
And yet, despite all technological advances, the term “human error” continues to appear in accident discussions.
So let me ask you directly, as you often say — without filters:
Is aviation today more of a technological challenge or a human challenge?
JUAN CARLOS:
For many years, the industry simplified things too much by saying “90% of accidents are caused by human error.”
But that conclusion was incomplete.
Humans are not machines.
Performance is not constant.
Our decisions are influenced by fatigue, stress, emotional condition, workload, environment and many other variables.
So today, instead of simply blaming individuals, aviation studies the entire system surrounding human performance.
That is a major evolution.
Because what we call “human error” is often the final visible point of a much larger chain of conditions.
And now we understand much better how humans interact with systems, automation, procedures, training environments and operational pressures.
Technology has made aircraft extraordinarily reliable.
But humans remain central to managing complexity, uncertainty and unexpected situations.
And that is why training itself is evolving dramatically.
Today we are moving from Big Data to Smart Data.
We analyse millions of operational data points and transform them into evidencebased training models.
That is where concepts like Evidence-Based Training (EBT) become extremely important. T
raining today is no longer generic.
It is increasingly tailored around real operational risks identified through data.
ARTURO:
And that connects directly to one of the most important concepts you have helped develop and promote across Latin America:
Just Culture.
Because without transparency, there is no real safety system.
Explain to us why Just Culture matters so much.
JUAN CARLOS:
Because people must feel safe to speak.
If reporting an error automatically means punishment, people will stop reporting.
And when people stop reporting, organisations lose visibility.
They lose learning opportunities.
They lose risk awareness.
A Just Culture does not mean there are no consequences.
Negligence, intentional violations and reckless behaviour are completely different matters.
But honest mistakes must become learning opportunities.
In a healthy safety culture, people can openly say: “I made a mistake.”
Or: “This procedure is confusing.”
Or: “I see a risk developing.”
That transparency is invaluable.
And when organisations build trust correctly, reporting increases dramatically.
At Grupo Aeroméxico, for example, we went from around one hundred thousand reports years ago to more than 156,000 effective reports by 2025.
That is not a sign of worsening safety.
It is a sign of stronger trust and stronger reporting culture.
And every report represents an opportunity to improve the system before something serious occurs.
ARTURO:
That is incredibly powerful.
Because ultimately, safety is not a final state.
It is a constant process of learning. So let us return to the original question.
Aviation is inherently risky.
Yet it remains the safest transport system in the world.
After everything we discussed today — does safety depend more on systems or on people?
JUAN CARLOS:
You cannot separate the two.
There are no systems without people.
And there are no safe operations without strong systems.
Technology continues improving, but aviation remains highly regulated, so major technological changes often take years before implementation.
Human improvement, however, can evolve much faster.
That is why understanding human performance remains one of the industry’s greatest opportunities.
If we continue improving training, reporting culture, operational awareness and risk identification, we will continue making something already extraordinarily safe even safer.
ARTURO:
And looking ahead — where do you see the next major leap in aviation safety?
JUAN CARLOS:
I believe several areas will evolve quickly.
One is enhanced runway awareness technology — systems capable of alerting crews immediately to runway incursions, vehicles or unexpected traffic during low visibility operations.
Another is greater integration between civil and military traffic management systems, especially in congested airspace environments.
And finally, continued evolution in predictive safety systems driven by data analytics and smarter operational monitoring.
The future of aviation safety will increasingly combine technology, data and humancentred operational design.
ARTURO:
Juan Carlos, thank you very much.
It is clear after this conversation that safety is not a destination — it is a permanent process of evolution.
And perhaps that is exactly why aviation, despite being inherently high-risk, continues to be the safest mode of transportation in the world.
This was Altitude.
Thank you very much for listening.
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