Story ID: 
Safety Standdown celebrates 10 years
By: Chad Trautvetter
Caption: Bombardier Aerospace earlier this month kicked off its 10th annual Safety Standdown in Wichita.
Word Count: 356
Bombardier Aerospace earlier this month kicked off its 10th annual Safety Standdown in Wichita. For the first time, the event was fully endorsed by NBAA.

“In its first decade, Safety Standdown has evolved into one of the largest and most comprehensive safety conferences in the industry,” noted Bombardier Business Aircraft director of flight operations Bob Agostino. “The participation of the FAA, NTSB and NBAA demonstrates the importance of this type of knowledge-based training. At the end of the day, we are all just trying to save lives.”

The most recent four-day seminar was extremely popular with pilots and flight crews. Attendance was fully booked at 450 participants by early August, with more than 300 people on the waiting list. Bombardier offers Safety Standdown free of charge to all business jet operators.

The workshops offered this year included medical and emergency training (CPR, in-flight firefighting and water and land evacuation); advanced psychology behavior modification; international operations recurrent training; and high-altitude hypoxia training.

Opening remarks were delivered by several safety and aviation industry leaders, such as FAA associate administrator for aviation safety Nick Sabatini, NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen, NTSB managing director Joseph Osterman and Bombardier Business Aircraft senior v-p of customer experience James Hoblyn.

The seminars featured the return of subject matter experts Dr. Mark Rosekind on fatigue countermeasures, Dr. Jerome Berlin on applied aviation psychology and Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. This year also included some new additions to the roster, among them Dr. Kathleen Sutcliffe from the University of Michigan Business School and co-author of Managing the Unexpected.

“Safety Standdown is important for our customers and aircraft operators industrywide,” said Bombardier Business Aircraft president Pierre Cote. “I am delighted with the growing interest and continued support it receives from governing safety agencies, as it underlines the wide-ranging impact of the program and emphasizes that this is much more than a company event. Bombardier is proud to be forging this path toward safer flight for everyone.”