Premium on Safety - Issue 26, 2017 - 1

PREMIUM ON SAFETY
ISSUE 26 FALL 2017

IN THIS ISSUE
Quiz: Deicing 03
Best Practices: 04
Safety Performance Indicators and
Effective Risk Management
ASI Message: 05
Fly and Educate with FOQA
Focus on Training: 06
Train Like You Fly

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT

A MESSAGE FROM USAIG
The US Coast Guard has again been praised for its ability
to instantly mix people and aircraft from anywhere in the
service and respond safely after recent hurricanes Harvey,
Irma, and Maria. It doesn't seem possible we'd have three
major storms in a row this past August and September, but
then, in the insurance world we know, just about anything
is possible.
The Coast Guard, stretched as thin as it was by the
onslaught of seemingly impossible weather that impacted
the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Florida, was able to
do what they do and mix in with the other military services,
be they Guard units or Navy, because of one common trait:
standardization of training and operation.
Standardization is a subtle thing. You may be able to do
a job quicker or for less on a normal day if everyone just
does things their own way, as long as they always have the
companies' best interests in mind.
But things change quickly when the pressure gets ratcheted up a few notches. Here's an everyday example: my
favorite bagel shop. All week long the place is pretty mellow, however, pandemonium rules on busy Sunday mornings because nothing is standard. All the counter workers
take and fill orders in their own special way (fortunately the
bakers seem to have it together and the product is consistently wonderful). If one method was set and followed by
all, they'd drastically up throughput and customer service,
but they don't even sense what's missing.
It takes effort, investment and leadership to get a team
operating in a standardized way. It also takes time to
design a program that works across the board in a flight
department. Some companies think that standardization
isn't much of an issue, perhaps because the flight department is small, or because the flying they do is predictable.
We all know, though, that when it comes to aviation,
complacency, the sense that "all is just fine the way it is,"
can lead to real problems. When the paradigm changes
and the pressure is on, such as during a weather crisis,
or the ensuing rescue event after the storm, knowing your
people know exactly what they need to do can be vitally
important to mission success. So get your teams' operation standardized in the quiet and relative calm before
the storm.
Fly smart and fly safe.

Paul Ratté
Director of Aviation Safety Programs, USAIG

Fatigue Management
Systems Come of Age
One flight department's story

BY WALTER JOHANSEN, PILOT, COOK CANYON RANCH AVIATION

Fatigue Management System (FMS)-
if you're an IS-BAO certified operator, you've already approached this
three-letter acronym or will soon.
This is the year we all need to
confront FMS.

have extensive experience with long
haul international flights so fatigue
prevention and mitigation was
nothing new.
The system we've implemented
is based on the experience previ-

Fatigue is no longer an "I feel tired" scenario,
which is reactive and subjective, but a predictive
and objective scenario.
"Why do we need this?" "How
will this affect our bottom line?"
"What long trips won't we be able
to do now?" are all questions most
operators ask themselves when confronted with systems based fatigue
prevention and mitigation.
As an organization at Cook Canyon
Ranch Aviation we're blessed with
an unbridled acceptance of all things
practical that make us better. When
our FMS journey began our Aviation
Manager appealed to the group
requesting we enhance and repackage the program we already had. Key
personnel within our organization

ously mentioned, but with a focus
on objective principles. Objective
principles such as, "How rested are
you?" and "How does your particular
fatigue score mix into our overall
flight risk?" along with "What about
augmented 3-pilot crews?" and "How
about the evacuation specialist's
fatigue value, how does that affect
us if the worst were to happen?"
are all answered. Like any systemic
approach within aviation, there's
also a special place for the perennial
question, "How do we make it better?"
(continued on page 2)

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Premium on Safety - Issue 26, 2017