Risk Management Magazine

It was a clear, crisp day in New Hampshire’s White Mountains as we flew visual flight rules in our UH-60A. The pilot in command (PC) and I had departed the Army National Guard Concord Army Aviation Support Facility for some mountain training. The winds were light enough that we practiced mountain approaches to the helipad atop Mount Washington, not far from an observatory.

As evening approached, the crews were preparing for their night vision goggle (NVG) training mission. The task was to conduct readiness level (RL) progression for hoist operations. As the crew adjusted their NVGs and cranked the UH-60, they had no idea a routine litter hoist training mission would result in something much more.

Feedback from Army Aviation’s safety stand-down day this summer noted an increase in training task complexity in support of large-scale combat operations and challenges in training prioritization. These two factors combined could lead to an increase in levels of operational risk as training complexity increases without a corresponding increase in train-up and recovery/retrain time.