ACSF Safety Summit Opens with Tackling Daily Challenges

The Air Charter Safety Foundation’s (ACSF) annual Safety Symposium opened today with an immersive approach involving a scenario-driven program focused on challenges confronting operators. This marks the event’s fifth consecutive year at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s (ERAU) Daytona Beach, Florida campus.

The ACSF program, themed “A Day in the Life—The Aviation Reality Show,” also marks the first time that Debi Carpenter has opened the event as president of the organization. Carpenter, who joined ACSF in 2023, took over as president last year after Bryan Burns retired.

Carpenter welcomed the nearly 150 business aviation executives in attendance and the many more online, saying, “I remember the first time I walked onto a tarmac when I first started in this industry, and I still feel today how I felt then—that this is one of the most exciting industries in the world, and the reason it’s so successful is because of the people.” 

Explaining the theme as “the one that we all live every day,” Carpenter said the goal is to move beyond theory and focus on what is happening in daily operations.

Also welcoming attendees was Robert Sumwalt, the former long-time NTSB chair and executive director of ERAU’s Boeing Center for Aviation and Aerospace Safety, which is co-hosting the event.

Sumwalt noted that he attended one of the first, if not the first, ACSF Safety Summit in February 2008, when it was held at the NTSB training academy in Ashburn, Virginia, with 50 people in attendance. “It really has turned into a first-rate safety event. You’re right up there with the Bombardier Safety Standdown and with [the Business Aviation Safety Summit], and that’s…pretty good company to be in.”

He further praised ACSF initiatives such as the Aviation Safety Action Program, a Safety Management System tool, the Industry Audit Standard, and surrounding flight data monitoring.

“You are collectively raising the bar on safety,” Sumwalt said. But he added, “I really worry about the people that are not here, and what are you going to do about that.” He asked if the audience would be good mentors if “the guy in the hangar next to you is running a loose operation.”

Conceding that it’s hard to do, he proposed, “We are our brother’s keeper because if there’s a crash involving a Part 91 airplane or Part 135 airplane or even a Part 121 airline, the entire industry gets painted with a broad brush.” He emphasized that the industry has a responsibility for mentorship to collectively raise the bar.

ACSF chairman and Flexjet chief safety officer Kent Stauffer also picked up on that theme and added that this comes down to safety culture. “Safety will live and die in your culture,” he said. “If you have the wrong culture, it will die.”

Further, if the approach is right, “You don’t have to put a poster on the wall that says safety first. It’s just a part of your DNA.”

Richard Meikle, executive v-p of safety at NetJets, was the first presenter, delving into safety culture and honing in on a “good, better, best” approach. Under this approach, organizations drive to “best” in safety culture without tipping the scales to the point where it undermines the business. Meikle further pointed to the importance of vendors, noting that their safety culture will reflect on the operator as well.

Meikle participated in a business aviation careers panel, joined by Christian Santiago, orbital launch controller at Blue Origin, and Daniel Marimoto, an aviation safety engineer at Embraer. The panelists provided insights into their path into safety jobs. While each had different paths to those jobs, all embraced safety as a passion.

Also ahead of the Safety Summit, ACSF held a “Safety Return on Investment” workshop, highlighting a new tool that the organization is rolling out in the upcoming weeks to demonstrate the results of safety efforts. Meikle noted that being able to highlight the results, or the ROI, of safety initiatives will help lay the foundation for being able to request more investment for future asks.