MISHAP-FREE FLYING HOUR MILESTONES

The Mobility Forum regularly highlights Mishap Free Flying Hour Milestones. Those recognized have achieved 2,500 hours, 3,500 hours, 5,000 hours, 6,500 hours, 7,500 hours, 8,500 hours, and even 10,000 hours free of mishaps.

Flight safety does not happen by accident. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) continuously develops steps toward improving the safety of flight and preventing the mishaps that cost money, the loss of aircraft, permanent disability, and loss of life. In addition to improvements in aircraft engineering, control systems, and aircrew training, advancements are being made in human factors to improve safety.

In the early 1990s, the Air Force implemented Crew Resource Management (CRM) as a way to establish attitudes that contribute to effective teamwork among pilots, copilots, navigators, flight engineers, boom operators, and loadmasters. This teamwork has increased the safety and mission effectiveness of Air Force flight crews. The critical elements of CRM include leadership, communication, situational awareness, problem solving, and critique.

The USAF uses a number of proactive safety programs such as Military Flight Operations Quality Assurance (MFOQA), which analyzes flight data and proactively identify triggers for mishaps. The MFOQA process involves collecting data from multiple flights and then processing those data through customized software and identifying patterns that indicate unsafe conditions that could lead to a mishap.

The Aviation Safety Action Program allows the USAF to document and track unintentional errors, hazardous situations and events, or high-risk activities that might be missed through traditional formal safety reporting channels. The reported information is used to mitigate mishaps through operational, logistical/maintenance, training, and procedural improvements.

The Air Force Line Operations Safety Audit (LOSA) is a nonpunitive, identity-protected, peer-to-peer observation program that employs a standardized methodology to provide leaders and aircrews with information to assist in managing systemic operational risk. LOSA is used to collect safety-related data during normal operations by identifying the threats personnel face and the standard errors made to produce recommendations that help mitigate identified risks, prevent potential mishaps, and drive procedural and technical data rewrites or changes and system upgrades.

The Air Force Combined Mishap Reduction System (AFCMRS) is a survey that helps commanders assess the safety culture of their units through anonymously surveying members’ attitudes and perceptions. AFCMRS helps leaders find hidden safety risks, inform mitigations, monitor changes, or affirm a safety culture.

An Organizational Safety Assessment (OSA) is a comprehensive, face-toface assessment that provides a very detailed look at a unit’s safety culture. A team of subject matter experts spends approximately 10 to 14 days within an organization conducting focus groups, interviews, and surveys to evaluate safety in operations, maintenance, and support domains, as well as on commander-specific focus areas.

TO SUBMIT MISHAP-FREE FLYING HOUR MILESTONES: Send your request to: [email protected] HQ AMC/SEE, 618.229.0927 (DSN 779) Please submit as shown in the listings above (first name, last name, sorted alphabetically within rank).