Fuel Safety PSAs Confront Cause Of Many Accidents

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation is taking a humorous and edgy approach to help educate pilots about fuel management by producing Pilot Safety Announcements (PSAs) that can be viewed by all pilots online.

"Flying is as safe as you choose to make it and fuel management accidents should be among the simplest to remedy," said Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. "But nearly three accidents happen each week because of fuel exhaustion or starvation. It’s not a record we should be proud of."

One of the PSA videos asks the question: What if the airlines handled fuel management the way some general aviation pilots do? The PSA shows an airline flight preparing to depart to Hawaii and the captain advising passengers that they might have enough fuel for the entire flight.

Another pokes fun at the idea every pilot has an excuse for running out of fuel, and uses a pilot’s concern for the environment and unconventional use of a hybrid to illustrate the point.

The Air Safety Foundation is focusing on the issue because of the relatively high frequency of accidents that should be totally preventable.

The Foundation is expanding its efforts by using this new media to complement the several approaches to educating the pilot community that they have used in the past, and continue to use. The Air Safety Foundation is now distributing the video PSAs to get the message to pilots without lecturing.

Pilots will be able to view the 30-45 second PSAs on the AOPA Air Safety Foundation website, and at safety seminars to reach all the pilots who are sure they won’t be the next one to run out of fuel. The Web site also offers additional fuel management resources such as a safety advisor and safety brief.

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation, the world’s largest non-profit general aviation safety organization, was founded in 1950 solely to help general aviation pilots improve flight safety. Since that time, the general aviation total accident rate has dropped by more than 90 percent despite a large increase in general aviation flight hours. ASF produces live seminars, online interactive courses, training DVDs, written Safety Advisors and other aviation safety materials for free distribution to all general aviation pilots.

FMI: www.asf.org/psa