Each year, the National Business Aviation Association’s Safety Committee convenes to decide which business aviation operational issues are most in need of risk mitigation. The NBAA Safety Committee’s goal is to promote safety-focused discussion and advocacy throughout business aviation, as well as to help the association prioritize its safety-enhancement efforts.
The list’s creation each year follows the committee’s assessment of safety survey results, risk-based safety and qualitative input from industry and regulatory partners, as well as other NBAA committees and association members. The added value of the annual safety list is how easily most of the items can transfer to the rest of the GA pilot population.
For 2018, the Safety Committee’s plans to specifically focus on loss of control inflight, runway excursions, procedural compliance, ground handling and taxi incidents, distraction management, scenario and risk-based training and checking, positive safety culture promotion, inflight aircraft collision risk, workforce competency and staffing and safety data sharing and utilization.
The last important item on the committee’s list for 2018 is single-pilot operations. Two years ago, the safety committee’s six-member working group initiated an ambitious project to outline some of the problems faced by pilots flying high-performance aircraft alone. The working group team wrote and produced a safety video, “Alone in the Cockpit,” that debuted at the NBAA’s 2016 Single-Pilot Safety Standdown. The video continues to serve as a resource to pilots around the world.
