GWBAA held its Third Annual Safety Standdown
on May 7 at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Training Center in Ashburn, VA. The attendees
included pilots, maintenance technicians and other representatives from corporate flight departments and aviation support
businesses in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and from areas throughout the country.
Doug Carr, Vice President of Safety for the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), gave
the opening remarks and was followed by Jim Burin, director of technical programs for the Flight Safety Foundation, who spoke
about today’s aviation safety challenges.
“A
safety culture is the single most important item for any aviation operation and the one item that you can’t buy,”
said Burin. “It must be supported by senior management.”
This
year’s event included three breakout sessions. Bob Hobbi, owner of ServiceElements, spoke about achieving
superior levels of customer service for FBOs, charter operators and flight departments. John Rahilly, principal
of Rahilly Aviation Associates, gave a presentation on how to obtain the best price and highest quality service when having
an aircraft serviced. Additionally, the NTSB’s Dr. Paul Schuda gave attendees a tour of the reconstructed
portion of the fuselage of TWA Flight 800 and explained how the accident aircraft was reconstructed.
Captain Alfred Haynes, of United Airlines Flight 232, was the keynote speaker. In
1989 Haynes and his crew crash landed a crippled DC-10-10 in Sioux City, Iowa with no hydraulics. Although
there were 111 fatalities, there were also 184 survivors. During his presentation, which included the video
of the accident together with ATC recordings, Haynes credited Crew Resource Management (CRM) with limiting the number of fatalities
and praised everyone involved in the accident: pilots, flight attendants, maintenance personnel, air traffic controllers and
especially the Sioux City emergency response crews who responded to the accident.
In lieu of an honorarium to Haynes, GWBAA has donated $2500 to the Al Haynes Scholarship Foundation,
which is used to assist aviations students at Aims Community College.
“This
year’s Safety Stand-Down built on the success of our last two stand-downs and was an unqualified success,” said
Paige Kroner, president of GWBAA. “My thanks to all of our sponsors, speakers and volunteers who
contributed to that success.”
This year’s
sponsors included Bombardier, Dassault Falcon, Gulfstream, Satcom Direct, Welsch Aviation, Sharp Details, FlightSafety, NBAA,
Signature Flight Support, Universal Weather & Aviation and Landmark Aviation. The stand-down is eligible
for credit towards NBAA's Certified Aviation Manager (CAM) qualification.
GWBAA also thanks ARINC, Air Routing, AvCard, Hawker Beechcraft, and Jeppesen for donating prizes
to our drawing. If you haven’t already, please give us your feedback, and we look forward to seeing
you next year.
