The International Air Transportation Association (IATA) today spotlighted what it considers three priorities for sustaining progress in aviation safety. At its World Safety and Operations Conference in Marrakech, the trade group noted its focus on strengthening global standards, building a safety culture, and leveraging data to combat what it identified as “growing operational challenges, numerous regional conflicts, and evolving cybersecurity threats.”
I believe the real challenge today is about the dog that chases the car and finally catches it. Now what? Airline travel is at unprecedented high levels of safety today, so much so that in a world with statistically virtually no scheduled airliner fatal crashes, figuring out what our safety related continuous improvement goals should be today has become a challenge, however as IATA suggests theres more work to be done. Maintaining the amazing safety record that has been achieved by our industry is where the work must be focused. Root cause findings are needed rather than probable cause. GA however remains a target rich environment for fatal accident reduction, especially fatalities resulting from a “survivable” crash.