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Helo Symposium Hears Safety Message

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS060504-14
Release Date: 5/4/2006 9:26:00 PM

By Dan Steber, Naval Safety Center Public Affairs

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Deputy Commander, Naval Safety Center, Marine Col. Jim Jamison presented an update on helicopter and off-duty mishaps at the 58th Annual Naval Helicopter Association (NHA) Symposium in Jacksonville, Fla., April 24-27.

Jamison reviewed several helicopter mishaps and discussed specific causal factors, adding a risk analysis of what steps, procedures or events could have made a difference.

"Change is the mother of all risk," said Jamison. "Naval helicopter crews must be prepared to face it. Mishaps occur when air crews don't plan for or react well to 'what's different today?' Navy helicopters will be tasked with more in-country missions. With that comes change - and an increased risk of mishaps."

The colonel went on to discuss “red threats” and “blue threats” - red threats are the risks or losses faced from enemy combatants, and blue threats are “what we do or fail to do ourselves, and the impact those actions or inactions have on readiness and mission accomplishment.”

Jamison also discussed another theme developed during the effort to reinvigorate operational risk management (ORM): “What’s different today?” — WDT for short. That simple phrase expresses the approach every Sailor and Marine should take to prevent on- or off-duty mishaps.

“WDT helps us to do time-critical ORM and to develop tactics to fight the blue threat,” said Jamison. “The biggest blue threat we have is on highways and with traffic-related mishaps. As far as total losses, we lose the equivalent of an aviation squadron or a small ship’s worth of people every year, and the blue-threat losses far exceed those from the red threat.”

Commander, Helicopter Reserve Wing, Capt. James Iannone, acknowledged the importance of risk management, human factors councils and other intervention strategies.

“There is no more important aspect than following the proper procedure at the point of execution,” Iannone said. “We still must stress and execute the fundamental skills of airmanship to prevent mishaps.”

For more information on Naval Safety Center efforts to reduce mishaps, share best practices, and provide safety awareness information, visit the Naval Safety Center Web site at www.safetycenter.navy.mil.