ACSF ASAP Program Reaches 115 Participants

The Air Charter Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) has grown to encompass 115 Part 135 and 91 operators, an expansion that outpaced the organization’s own expectations, said Russ Lawton, director of safety for the organization. The program, which involves a memorandum of understanding with the FAA, provides a mechanism for voluntarily reporting and mitigating safety issues in a “non-threatening” environment. While originally designed for Part 135, 65 of the participants in the ACSF-administered program are Part 91 operations.

These programs, Lawton told attendees yesterday at the Bombardier Safety Standdown, have provided the “the opportunity to drill down and determine the root causes,” he said. “We’re able to tally up what’s going on out there.” The events are following common themes: altitude deviations, course deviations, procedure deviations, maintenance issues, and logbook/paperwork issues. Similarly, the causes include distractions, pressures for on-time performance, high workload, inadequate training, and peer pressure.

These are providing lessons for corrective actions, such as checklists, training, and perhaps most important, recognition of threats. Lawton said that recognition is critical because many of the reports are from sole sources and without them, those threats would continue to go unrecognized.

“It’s easy to read these reports and have a Dr. Phil moment: ‘What were they thinking?’” Lawton said, but added, the “reality is they happened, we are all vulnerable to them, and the [benefit is] the lessons we can learn from them.”