Themes Are Familiar: Professionalism, Safety

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt brought his message of safety and professionalism to the Women in Aviation International conference in Orlando, FL Friday, as the keynote speaker for the opening general session. His speech ranged from those familiar themes to updates on NextGen, ADS-B, and other technological advances in the industry.

Babbitt said when it comes to safety, the best way to spot large events and to keep them from happening is to pick out the small events first, and identify them. "Lately we've had a number of events that I could say gave me some pause, some concern. I think that focusing a little bit on what we have seen as lapses in professionalism come to mind.  In my opinion, we're going to have to increase our vigilance, we're going to have to pay more attention, we're going to have to focus, because America holds us, as aviation professionals, to a very high standard. We have to get it right the first time, and we have to get it right every time."

Babbitt said in the previous two years over 2 billion people had been carried on airlines safely, and that the nations runways have never been safer. But like a surgeon, it doesn't matter how many times he or she had performed an operation successfully, to the patient, the operation that matters is the one he or she is undertaking now. The passengers on an airplane, he said, feel the same way. The flight that matters to them is the one they're on.

"We have to continue to focus all of our attention on the never-ending need for all of to do everything we can for safety," Babbitt said. "What I ask is for everyone in this business needs step up and make this a front and center focus. And I can't think of a better place to that than here. This is the most marvelous mentoring center that I think I've ever been. So this is a great place for us to take this message and send it." And, Babbitt said, the effort needs to be ongoing. "We need to climb and maintain a higher level of safety."

Babbitt said the takes "great exception" to the suggestion that nothing is happening on rulemaking for crew rest and other issues. "We have a lot of pieces in motion that have not only to do with fatigue, but also training, how we do simulation training, new things we can do with hi-fidelity training, those are all things that are coming out in the form of new rule making."

But at the end of the day, Babbitt said, it all comes down to the people who operate the machines. "as long as there are humans in the loop, as long as they interact with machines, there is a chance for error. we've got to take a very hard look at human factors as we go forward." He said everyone has a responsibility to create a safety culture. "Total perfection ... absolute 100 percent perfection all the time, is not realistic. But we can make perfection the norm, not the exception. And that should never stop us from striving to climb to the next level of safety, or professionalism."

FMI: www.faa.gov