New Emphasis on Single-Pilot Safety by NBAA

Author: Robert A. Wright

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) has targeted the safety of single-pilot operations as one of its top ten safety issues for 2014. Earlier in the year, the NBAA Safety Committee listed single-pilot safety as a priority, alongside such issues as professionalism and technology management.

This emphasis is not surprising, given that the fatal accident rate for owner-pilots flying light business aircraft (LBA) is significantly higher than that of multi-pilot crews of business and corporate aircraft. In addition, a wide variety of new single-pilot aircraft, ranging from single-engine piston aircraft to multi-engine turbojets, have been introduced into the market in recent years. This has increased the extent of single-pilot operations of LBA, as well as the visibility of their safety record and issues.

Single-Pilot Safety Events

The NBAA is backing up its new emphasis with additional seminars and other events at the annual conventions, including the upcoming one in Orlando, Florida (October 20-23). There will be a Single-Pilot Safety Standdown the day before the main convention begins, and single-pilot safety will be a topic at the Safety Town Hall Meeting and a component of other safety seminars and meetings.

The emphasis on single-pilot safety will continue as part of the Safety Committee agenda, and will also be addressed by its newly formed Training Sub-committee. Training will obviously be a key means of addressing single-pilot safety issues, especially for pilots who don’t attend formal training courses at established training centers.

Numerous training products will be on display at the convention, offered by many vendors of both traditional training products and courses and suppliers of new training technologies. These products cover the wide range of training requirements, although most are focused on operations by multi-pilot crews, rather than single-pilot operation of LBA.

If you fly single-pilot, the safety courses you should be seeking include those that emphasize single-pilot resource management (SRM) skills such as risk management, automation management, task and workload management, and situational awareness. These skills are crucial to addressing key safety areas that are the root cause of most fatal LBA accidents. If you are attending this year’s NBAA convention and operate an LBA single-pilot, you may want to look at some of these courses, as well as attend the Single-Pilot Safety Standdown and other events focused on single-pilot operations.

TrainingPort.net, in cooperation with Crew Resource Management LLC, now offers a complete online SRM course for business aviation (available for purchase through our storefront).

Robert A. Wright is the president of Wright Aviation Solutions, LLC. He is a member of the leadership team of Crew Resource Management, LLC, which has been providing comprehensive CRM training to corporate flight departments for over four years.