FAA issues Safety Brief to Pilots on How to Handle Emergencies

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a Safety Briefing that highlights the most basic aspect of pilot safety: how to handle abnormal and emergency situations. The November/December 2010 issue (available online) outlines the intricacy of planning for the unexpected in addition to directing pilots to tools and resources made available for handling emergencies.

 

The issue contains articles with a multitude of guidelines on handling electrical system failure, partial-power takeoffs, and unusual attitude recovery. The Hot Spot article in this issue is on FAA’s work in the area of GA fatal accidents, the identification of causes leading to the accidents, and a list of the 10 most important causes. The issue has a vertical speaking column that focuses on Helicopter Safety, with a list of the main reasons (top 10) behind helicopter accidents. The column also talks about the FAA Safety Team’s regional safety seminars conducted with the Helicopter Association International.

 

Aviation Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) are encouraged to use the Service Difficulty Reporting System, which is explained in detail in the Nuts, Bolts, and Electrons article.

 

Growing concerns regarding airline safety prompted the FAA to propose Safety Management Systems (SMS) for most commercial airlines in an announcement earlier this month.

 

SMS provides operators a set of tools to examine day-to-day operational data. It enables them to segregate trends that could have set off accidents or incidents. Additionally, it helps them form and execute risk mitigation strategies. The SMS helps manage safety of the organization in four main parts: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion.

 

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced a press conference to update the status of its Most Wanted List of Safety Improvements directed at state governments. The list includes the requirement for booster seats for young children, stringent drunken driving laws, laws for primary seat belt and recreational boating safety laws. These laws are to be adopted by all states since many have not done so.