ACSF Expanding Horizons, Diving into Data

The Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) is continuing to evolve with new and changing programs, as well as deeper partnerships both with government and industry, reported chairman Kent Stauffer on Thursday during the organization’s annual Safety Summit in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Not quite two decades old, the nonprofit safety organization has continued to grow as initiatives such as its Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) have taken root. The association has also rolled out tools surrounding safety management systems (SMS), an Industry Audit Standard, and flight data monitoring, and has expanded participation with helicopter operations, insurance companies, and other organizations that typically haven’t been involved in the past, said Stauffer, who is chief safety officer of Flexjet.

However, as ASAP has been an important part of the organization’s financial underpinnings, he warned that SMS will undercut the need for such programs. As a result, ACSF is pivoting, exploring other ways to add value, including diving deeper into data.

“We know that with the evolution of SMS programs, ASAP programs are going to go away at some point. It’s just going to be SMS,” Stauffer pointed out. “So, our sources of revenue or the way that we pay for all the things that go back to you have to change, too.”

One way to prepare for this is to invest in technology to become more of a data aggregator, he further said. Maintaining that the organization is financially strong, he explained the update was to highlight “some of the visions that we have going forward.”

Stauffer also praised president Debi Carpenter, who took over last year after Bryan Burns retired. He noted that Carpenter has been working hard behind the scenes during the transition. “She’s made some great connections with the FAA [and] other industry groups, and what we’re starting to see is the government and other organizations coming towards us to act as the intermediary—as a safe space where we can all come together. There’s no agenda other than truly improving the safety of our industry,” Stauffer said.

The results of some of this will come to light soon, he added. “We’ve seen a lot of momentum.”

With the idea of being a central forum for industry safety, Stauffer pointed out that, as a membership benefit, ACSF has created a repository of more than 60 documents involving manuals, policies, and procedures of other member operators that are deidentified, Stauffer said. These include everything from an operator’s mobile device policy to an SMS manual and OSHA inspection guidelines.

“You can take any of them, put your name on them, and tweak them to your operation. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he said, noting that most of the documents have been well vetted: “They’re third and fourth versions. They’re not something you find on the shelf. Most of them are working currently in some operation somewhere.”

However, he asked members if the “take any from the repository, leave one in exchange” has worked for their operation. This could be a manual, SOP, or something that works for the organization. ACSF staff reviews all the documents before they get posted. “We really want this sharing of information.”

Another ongoing effort at the organization is a ground operations working group. This committee includes broad industry participation with the hope of developing recommendations on safety measures that could guard against ground incidents.

Patrick Burns, senior vice president of flight operations at Wheels Up, who chairs the committee, explained that the group was born out of a concern about increasing ground damage events at his own operation. He noticed this uptick at the beginning of the first few days of last year. “We hit everything whether [or not] it was bolted down,” he said, adding that this prompted an internal review.

The operator wanted to ensure that pilots had all the tools they needed, but it also factored in a partnership with the FBOs and other ground handlers. This review led to phone calls with other major operators. “Are you guys running into everything as much as we are?” he asked. The response: “Yes, and more.”

This led the executives from the entities to sit down in June to explore commonalities and develop means to mitigate damages. Burns added that the conversation continued to grow, and the group extended beyond the major Part 135 operators, fractional ownership providers, and FBOs to insurance underwriters, MROS, and Part 91 operators, eventually formalized under the ACSF umbrella.

Pointing to the sentiments that as an industry, “we are our brother’s keepers,” the working group forwards the concept that “if there’s an operator out there that has a great best practice or really, robust guidance and policies and procedures, let’s share that for those other organizations that don’t have that, so that rising tide can not only float all boats, but we all miss each other in the channel as well,” Burns said.

The goal, added Larry Soles, director of operations at ACSF, is to create resources where resources and standards don’t exist. The committee is conducting data analysis across the companies to look for commonalities involving these ground incidents. “We think we know, but it’s all anecdotal at this point,” Soles said. “So, we’re going to dive into the data, and the ACSF can help with that.”

Ultimately, the participants are hoping to develop standards and procedures for operations, backed by potential training materials and videos—“just some different things to help be the rising tide that lifts all boats,” Soles said.