Aviation safety taken to new heights
Born from a desire to enhance aviation safety, international partners gathered for the inaugural International Combat Aviation Safety Summit (ICASS) in Canberra last month.
CAPTION: International Combat Aviation Safety Summit 2024 attendees. Story by Captain Simone-Maree Spano. Photo by Sergeant Carly Box.
The summit involved senior military battlefield aviation operators from Australia, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand sharing experiences and knowledge around improving institutional-level performance to enable safe flying operations at unit level.
Topics included aviation safety frameworks and contemporary challenges, such as flying operations in hazardous environments, spatial disorientation and organisational responses.
Commander Army Aviation Command Major General Stephen Jobson said ICASS provided a valuable forum to collaborate with our partners.
“The summit provided an opportunity to foster a continuous improvement mindset and commit to establishing a lessons-sharing framework between participating nations, to better prepare for and conduct flying operations in hazardous conditions,” Major General Jobson said.
“It was also an enabler to see ourselves as a community of practice and to act together to continuously improve collective priorities in flight safety.”
Co-sponsor of the ICASS concept, Deputy Commanding General of I Marine Expeditionary Force Brigadier General Patrick Tiernan, said the event provided an opportunity to share knowledge and learn from each other.
“Establishing a framework of support and communication, and sharing tools that enable safe training environments for our rotary wing and tilt rotor communities will serve to strengthen our deterrence posture and make us a more capable alliance,” Brigadier General Tiernan said.
“As an aviation community we must ask, and continue to ask, the hard questions.”
The summit included presentations on key lessons from the ADF, US Marine Corps and US Army representatives as well as experts from the Defence Flight Safety Bureau, scientists and experienced rotary wing operators.
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