Sept. 30, 2016
There is no more “noble purpose than to try and enhance safety, try to save lives and try to protect people,” NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen said in his remarks this week at the opening of Bombardier’s 20th annual Safety Standdown.
NBAA, he noted, is a sponsor of the event, and safety, in fact, is one of the reasons the association was founded 69 years ago.
“The pursuit of safety is a little bit like the pursuit of excellence, if you apply enough granularity, you realize you’re never quite there,” he said. “[The Safety Standddown] is an opportunity to see how far we’ve come” recognize that what we’re doing is making a difference, and also see where we need to go.
Bolen told the crowd of about 500 about NBAA’s recent study on compliance with the pre-takeoff flight-control checks required by aircraft manufacturers. The study, which analyzed 143,756 business aviation flights made between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2015, found that an average of 15 percent of those flights began with a partial flight control check, and 2 percent began without a full, valid check. The report defined a valid flight check as the stop-to-stop deflection of all flight controls specified by a manufacturer’s aircraft flight manual. Learn more about NBAA’s study.
“We have to understand where we are, we have to understand the data, and we have to find some way to look at what is happening and move from that reactive, ‘Gee, we’ve had an accident,’ to proactive, ‘There’s a challenge, we need to find the mitigation strategy’,” Bolen said.
Bolen also noted the work of the NBAA Safety Committee and its work to improve loss of control accidents, runway excursions and other issues that impact safety. View the committee’s Top Safety Focus Areas.
Additionally, NBAA is holding its Single-Pilot Safety Standdown on Oct. 31, prior to the opening of the 2016 Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE), and its National Safety Forum on Nov. 3, following NBAA-BACE.
“NBAA-BACE is not just a buying and selling opportunity, or an industry promotion opportunity, it’s an opportunity to educate and promote safety,” Bolen said.
“We’ve got tools to do it, we’ve got data to understand, but at the heart of this, it comes down to people and commitment and professionalism.”
About Bombardier’s Safety Standdown
Bombardier’s Safety Standdown promotes knowledge-based aviation safety training along with personal discipline and responsibility as essential elements of aviation professionalism and safety.
The aviation safety training seminars are free and open to all pilots, crewmembers, maintenance technicians and managers regardless of aircraft or manufacturer, on a first-come, first-served basis. They are not marketing events; there is nothing to buy. And the only thing being sold is a sincere effort to initiate and sustain positive changes in individual aviation safety behavior and increased professionalism in creating an aviation safety culture.
International Business Aviation Council Ltd.