Citadel Consulting, an aviation consulting firm led by industry researcher Christopher M. Broyhill, has completed a detailed analysis and comparison of four business aviation auditing protocols. The results of the analysis clearly indicate that the audit protocol that was most compliant with the ICAO source documents was Wyvern Wingman.

The analysis compared protocols against ICAO Annex 6, Part 1, Operation of Aircraft, and ICAO Annex 19, Safety Management.

Of the 95 compliance items listed in ICAO Annex 6, Part 1, only the Wyvern protocol addressed all the items. The IS-BAO protocol addressed 91 items. The ACSF and ARGUS protocols addressed 37 and 34 items respectfully. Additionally, the Wyvern protocols were the only ones that aligned precisely with the elements of the Annex.

While all four protocols addressed the basic elements of the safety management system as outlined in ICAO Annex 19, only the Wyvern and IS-BAO protocols provided for detailed analysis of an organisation's SMS and focused on the behaviour of the organisation itself, and not what was merely present in the organisation's manual suite. Additionally, the Wyvern and IS-BAO protocols provided detail for evaluating safety data collection and safety data information sharing while the ACSF and ARGUS protocols did not.

“We are delighted that Citadel Consulting’s analysis concluded that our Wingman and SMS audit protocols ranked #1 among the other business aviation audit protocols for alignment with international standards. Wyvern’s Wingman and SMS audit protocols align precisely with ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) for International Commercial Air Transport (Annex 6 Part 1) and Safety Management Systems (Annex 19). Wyvern adopted this approach over two years ago and now our Wingman operators gain the benefit of fully conforming to ICAO SARPs for operations and SMS, which are the governing requirements for all 193 ICAO member nations and regional aviation oversight agencies to include the FAA, Transport Canada, EASA, and virtually every nation on each continent,” says CEO of Wyvern Sonnie Bates.