The Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) is in the early stages of developing a flight data monitoring (FDM) program that could help small and medium-size operators remain proactive in gathering data, as well as fulfill a key component of safety management systems. ACSF has begun beta testing the program with three or four operators, Bryan Burns, the foundation’s president, told attendees at the recent Corporate Jet Investor Miami conference.
“The plan is for the Air Charter Safety Foundation to pick up the tab initially to get folks enrolled in the program,” he said, “so we could collect some data and get parameters of what the most common issues are that we’re facing, and then be the gatekeeper of the data.”
Overall, the idea is to help small and medium-size operators that lack the resources for an extensive FDM program to tap into such data. Burns said the program is designed to complement the foundation’s Aviation Safety Action Plan (ASAP) voluntary reporting program. “FDM will tell you what happened and ASAP will tell you why it happened,” he explained.
Recommended for Part 135 by the National Transportation Safety Board, FDM programs are “a great way to really determine exactly what is going on,” Burns concluded.