Page 27 - TNT Jan 17

NATIONAL BUSINESS AVIATION ASSOCIATION • focus
passengers may have to extract a life raft and inflate life vests in the hangar to learn their features.
“There is empowerment in the awareness of where things are and what I would do to help myself and help other passengers and the crew, if need be,” Fisher explains.
Range of Training Options
ConocoPhillips, an IS-BAO 3-registered operator (i.e., safety management activities are fully integrated and a positive safety culture is sustained), checks out its top f lyers on emergency equipment each year, and the flight attendants train with the pilots annually – one year on joint emergency drills and the next at a professional training facility.
“We like to use simulators so we get the real feel of the aircraft. Pull the windows, get in the raft, the whole works,” says Kristina Bauer-Selten, a ConocoPhillips flight attendant who chairs the Training and Safety Subcommittee of NBAA’s Flight Attendants Committee.
An increasingly popular feature is water egress and sea survival training, replicating a ditching situation. A special aircraft cabin simulator is submerged in a pool, teaching students how to avoid panic, put on and
The NTSB’s 2017-18 “Most Wanted” safety improvements list features 10 transportation- related priorities, including several that align
with key risks identified by NBAA and other general aviation stakeholders.
The list includes one item – loss of control in-f light (LOC-I) – dedicated specifically to general aviation. LOC-I is both on NBAA’s list of Top Safety Focus Areas, and a top priority for the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GA-JSC), which NBAA participates in as an industry member.
According to the NTSB, roughly half of all GA accidents are caused by LOC-I. “To prevent unintended departures from flight and better manage stalls, pilots
inflate the life preserver, safely exit the aircraft, get to the surface and board the raft. Organizations ranging from FlightSafety to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to ProAviation in Canada (where seaplanes and lake landings are more prevalent) now offer water ditching training.
Bauer-Selten says the company’s flight attendants are also certified ASHI emergency medical responders, as graduates of the American Safety and Health Institute (ASHI) for first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillators and other airborne health crises. “It’s emergency training one step further, being able to recognize symptoms such as heart attack and diabetic insulin shock,” she notes. “You can’t always get on the ground as quickly as you would like.”
Some fatalistic frequent flyers assume they wouldn’t survive an aircraft accident, and so can’t be bothered to pay attention to even the basic safety briefing. About four of five people live through most crashes; even so, many of them simply wait passively for directions.
In a Condition Orange situation where the pilot and/or flight attendant become incapacitated, having well-trained passengers could mean the difference betweenlifeanddeath. T&T
•
NTSB Most-Wanted List Highlights Control Loss, Other Risks
need more training and a better awareness of the technologies that can help prevent these tragedies,” the board noted.
Doug Carr, NBAA Vice President of Regulatory and International Affairs, noted the GA-JSC’s work on this issue has resulted in, “real product enhancements, such as angle-of-attack indicators, providing lower cost safety enhancing equipment to operators. We believe the GA-JSC’s efforts are providing measurable benefits to the general aviation community.” •
Reducing fatigue-related accidents, requiring medical fitness for duty and ending substance impairment in transportation are also on the NTSB list, as well as concerns shared by NBAA’s Safety Committee. T&T
January 2017 TWIN & TURBINE • 25