Premium on Safety - Issue 33, 2019 - 1

PREMIUM ON SAFETY
ISSUE 33 SUMMER 2019

IN THIS ISSUE

Industry Concerns: Proposed New Drug Testing Study 01
Quiz: Hot, Heavy, Humid, High 03
Lessons Learned: The Perils Of Texting While Flying 04
ASI Message: Moving Up, Down, Or Sideways 06
USAIG Performance Vector: Can Webinars Boost
Your Safety Culture? 08

A MESSAGE FROM USAIG

Can It Go On Without You?
An old adage says the quality of an organizational
leader is reflected in how the organization is doing
a year after the leader is gone. Even if it seems a bit
counterintuitive, hold that notion up next to what's
going on in your flight operation.
Are real opportunities for advancement present?
Do motivated people find those pathways fair,
challenging and worth trekking? Tightly-staffed
operations are constantly challenged to prevent the
legitimate need to 'manage' from stifling the future
view that is the heart of leadership-a word that
connotes guiding others from where they are to
somewhere else.
A conspicuous trait of the best flight organization
I've experienced was a contagious future focus that
permeated the whole. It wasn't one leader being a
generous mentor, it was a culture of mentorship in
which those with experience actively shared it, and
those up and coming were invited and constructively
steered to seek it. Do your organization's leaders
have your team on that kind of trajectory? Are
tomorrow's highly capable performers and leaders
being shown the way and developed with an urgency
of purpose? It's worth evaluating what you can do,
from wherever you sit, to help that happen. Since this
is a safety newsletter, you might be wondering what
this has to do with safety.
The answer: everything.
Fly smart and fly safe.

Paul Ratté
Director of Aviation Safety Programs, USAIG

INDUSTRY CONCERNS

Proposed New Drug Testing Study
Of All Pilots Who Obtain Medicals
An FAA Study Using Urine Collected During FAA
Physicals May Be In The Works
BY KATHRYN B. CREEDY
Nine general and business aviation organizations and pilot unions are
expressing concern about a proposed pilot drug study using urine
harvested during aviation medical exams, saying the study for which
they'd be used is flawed. The group is also calling on the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to reconsider the recommendation
calling for the study.
This issue was the subject of only one industry briefing by the FAA-
to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). David J. Oord,
AOPA Government Affairs Sr. Director for Regulatory Affairs, said the
study is on hold, but the industry is concerned because it has received
no formal notification, as the FAA didn't respond to queries seeking
clarification. According to a letter sent by the group and signed by AOPA,
Allied Pilots Association (APA), Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations
(CAPA), Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), Helicopter Association
International (HAI), National Air Transportation Association (NATA), National
Business Aviation Association (NBAA), and Southwest Airlines Pilots
Association (SWAPA), among other pilot unions, the FAA, in rejecting a
second briefing requested by industry, said the project was a go.
The proposed, three-year study stems from a 2014 NTSB recommendation
resulting from finding both prescribed and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs
in pilots who have died in accidents. The NTSB wants to compare its
results of accident pilots to those in the general flying population. But the
NTSB recommendation specifically excluded urine samples as the way
to get the information it wants, according to the letter, because those
samples would show only prior drug use, not present drug use, or current
impairment or effect on the body.
Continued on page 2

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