Risk Management Magazine

As the saying goes, the difference between a Class A and Class C mishap is inches and seconds. To add to that, total Class A-C mishaps can be predictive of the health of our safety programs.

The job of an aviation safety officer is practically identical to that of James Bond — filled with intrigue, danger and martinis (shaken, not stirred). Well, maybe not intrigue or martinis, but definitely danger, as in protecting our service members from it. At times, the challenge can be quantifying the threat and then communicating its existence effectively.

I showed up at my first assignment as an aviator right as we were headed out the door for a deployment in Regional Command East. I was excited and nervous. My Readiness Level 3 to 2 progression took two flights and suddenly I was flying combat missions with my troop standardization pilot (SP). Flight school had given me just enough experience to make me dangerous, so there were good days where I was nearly competent, and bad days where I was a liability in the cockpit.