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ASI MESSAGE
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Chilling Facts
BY BRUCE LANDSBERG

(continued from page 4)

family assistance. By profession, USAIG’s claims team deals with accidents
more often than your team does. You want to leverage that experience as
soon as possible.
Practices for notifying emergency contacts of the mishap crew and passengers are evolving. It used to be widely accepted that this should only
be done in person by a government official. But lessons about how people
process bad news—and the realities of our instant connectivity age—have
changed that. Phone contact by a company representative, who is not a
friend of the person being notified or likely to have ongoing contact afterward, is now preferable in most cases. Support networks and friends come
in afterward, distinct from notification. Because notification needs to be
done quickly, accurately, and correctly, your plan should cover who your
notifiers are, and how they are qualified and activated.
Family assistance is central after any accident with serious injuries or
fatalities. Beyond the relatives of the mishap crew, stress levels will spike
for everyone in the organization. Pre-determining who will manage family assistance and available resources is very important. Logistics should
also be considered in advance. If a mishap is near home base, where will
families gather? If at a distant location, will the company arrange travel for
families? If a charter flight might be used for this, what providers would you
consider? Because a serious mishap affects people in unpredictable ways,
USAIG recommends a temporary stand-down from flying. Will you do this?
What expectations will govern accommodating other crews and passengers
put on hold downrange in that case?
These “people care” concerns are common ones, but not all-inclusive. A
systemic assessment of your own operation should identify relevant issues
and pre-determine your stance on each. During an actual response, you
can always make prudent exceptions, so this won’t tie you down. But it will
prevent your response team from being swamped with decisions to mull
because for the most part, they’ll be executing a rational plan made on a
much less stressful day.
By now it should be clear: there’s a lot to this ERP stuff. Hopefully this
article and the previous one provoked some critical thinking about your
preparations. There are many more aspects than the ones covered here
that relate to this thing you hope you’ll never need, but pray runs perfectly
if you do. Want to take your preparation further? USAIG’s ERP assist team
can review policyholder ERPs and supply comprehensive feedback. Email
safety@usaig.com if interested.
Paul Ratté, USAIG Director of Aviation Safety Programs, served 25 years as
a U.S. Coast Guard aviator, where he logged more than 5,000 helicopter
flying hours, commanded two Air Stations, and was twice awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross for lifesaving rescues.

Getting the Most Out
of Training Centers

The icing season is upon us,
and every so often we are
reminded that it can and does
bring down not only the small,
but larger aircraft as well. Cases
in point: Air Florida Boeing
737—Washington, District of
Columbia; American Eagle ATR 42—Roselawn,
Indiana; Air France Airbus 330 (pitot system
icing)—South Atlantic Ocean; Cirrus SR22—
Norden, California (airsafetyinstitute.org/
acs_icing); TBM 700—Morristown, New Jersey.
Out of the five listed, all but one, the SR22,
were Flight-into-Known-Icing (FIKI) approved.
The exact causal factors are different in each
case, but the point is that super-cooled liquid
droplets can be disastrous no matter what
size aircraft. Unlike thunderstorms where life
gets ugly immediately, icing problems come
on gradually over the course of minutes. This
usually gives the pilot warning that he or she is
in an unfriendly part of the sky and it’s time to
do something. It’s subtle, unlike severe turbulence, and gradually chokes the lift out of the
wings, the tail, and sometimes the engine. We
need all those parts and pieces to fly.
In the case of the TBM 700 over New Jersey,
it was literally only a matter of three or four
minutes before the aircraft was ground bound.
It’s the subject of my upcoming December
“Landmark Accident” feature in AOPA Pilot. So
as you fly and train think about escape plans
before getting into the clouds or freezing precipitation. Minutes matter.
The Air Safety Institute has considerable educational resources available on the topic—from
webinars on cold weather operations to videos,
online courses, accident case studies, and so
forth. To remind pilots of the perils ice can bring
about in flight, ASI will be holding Ice Week,
November 3 through 9, including a live webinar
on Wednesday, November 6, at 7 p.m. Eastern
Time (airsafetyinstitute.org/iceweek).
Safe Flights…

Bruce Landsberg
President, AOPA Foundation
5

http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/acs_icing http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/acs_icing http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org/iceweek

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