Premium on Safety - Issue 24, 2017 - 1

PREMIUM ON SAFETY
ISSUE 24 YEAR 2017

IN THIS ISSUE

Runway Status Lights or ATC: 03
Who Is In Charge?
Lessons Learned: 04
180 Seconds to Impact
ASI Message: The Accident 05
That Didn't Happen
Best Practices: Tiptoeing 06
Through TFRs
Safety Spotlight: 07
The Bottom Falls Out

A MESSAGE FROM USAIG
In February, the NBAA held its well-attended
Leadership Conference. At the Air Charter
Safety Foundation Safety Symposium in
March, Brian Fielkow, CEO of trucking
company Jetco, gave a superb talk on
"Leading People Safety." I attend many
safety forums and it's great to see leadership
becoming more frequent on their agendas.
While emphasizing procedural compliance at
the personal level remains vital, it's at least
equally important to recognize leadership's
impact on any organization's culture.
Most of us readily see value in boosting
competency in our trained specialty. But
if a title such as CEO, Department Head,
Chief Pilot, Director of Aviation, Operations,
or Maintenance has been added to your
nameplate (or you hope it will) you have to
ask yourself the question: are you acting to
grow your skills and knowledge in the art and
science of leading people?
I hope so. Enhancing your ability to lead
through continuing education can be as
interesting and enjoyable a pursuit for you as
it is vital to your team's safety. Fly smart and
fly safe
.
Paul Ratté
Director of Aviation Safety Programs, USAIG

Transforming Aviation Safety
from Reactive to Predictive
BY CINDY YOUNGBLOOD

Trial and error: since the beginning it's
been a primary learning tool for aviators. Advances in design, mechanics and
operations were the same, taking place
via daring experimentation. Build it, fly
it, crash it and examine the evidence,
reconstruct and repeat. It was an admittedly reactive, unsafe and expensive
process.
In the past 50 years technology has
evolved to the point where aircraft operators can now examine aggregated flight
data before an accident occurs. This
analysis is changing the course of aviation safety, moving us away from a reactive, investigative process to a predictive
and preventive one.
Predictive analytics is a popular risk
assessment tool that has become one
of the most advanced forms of customized risk management across many
industries. This revolutionary "Big Data"
technology is helping to transform aviation safety through a voluntary program
created by the FAA called flight operations quality assurance (FOQA), which is
sometimes called flight data monitoring
(FDM) and flight data analysis (FDA). The
program involves the collection of digital flight data generated during aircraft
operations. Through data analysis, par-

ticipants can gain a deeper understanding of their flight operations and are able
to make proactive safety-related decisions that save both property and lives.
A main component of FOQA is the
flight data recorder (FDR), which preserves recent flight history by recording
dozens of parameters collected several
times per second. Don't confuse it
with the cockpit voice recorder (CVR),
although the two are often combined
into a single unit. Together the FDR and
CVR provide testimony of an aircraft's
flight history for use in accident investigation. These recording devices have
been around since the 1940s and are
required in U.S. commercial aircraft.
In 1948 the Civil Aeronautics Board
requested development of a flight
recorder to accumulate data for use in
developing SOPs designed to improve
aviation safety. Today's technology,
equipment, and FOQA/FDM program
combine to achieve this proactive
approach. Through voluntary participation, business aviation operators are
taking part in the early identification of
adverse safety trends, which, if uncorrected, could lead to accidents.
"FOQA is a discovery process," said
Joe Coates, chief pilot for Home Depot.
(continued on page 2)

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Premium on Safety - Issue 24, 2017