Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Some Safety Thoughts

Well I'm new to blogging but thought I would try this web site for a class homework assignment.  I'm an aviation safety instructor and find it helpful to provide students with real world examples of how to improve aviation safety.
One example I like to foot stomp is Foreign Object Damage prevention.  Recently I traveled back from Iraq and passed through 8 separate airports/airfields.  I noticed at one commercial airport where 3 ramp workers and what appeared to be 1 supervisor simply walked by or stepped over a piece of paper blowing around on the ramp under an aircraft.  I pointed this out to the gate agent and she said would call someone--eventually I saw someone pick-up the paper. 
The disturbing part is that 4 individuals ignored their environment.  Sometimes it takes someone looking from the outside in, or in this case from the inside of the building looking out, to identify something that needs to be corrected.

Makes me wonder how many other things get passed by that can cause Foreign Object Damage - to the airframe like puncturing a fuel cell or being sucked into a running engine.