Safety School, Not as Boring as it Sounds

In my post about the errant Boeing 737 door plug, I said I was a trained accident investigator in the Air Force. It seems like a good time to go over the training I attended.

I was the 429 TFS Safety Officer for most of my time in the squadron. I had to attend the Air Force safety school to fulfill the position’s duties. I found a lousy photocopy of my completion certificate, so here are the details.

The eight-week course was taught at Norton AFB (closed 1994), just outside San Bernadino, CA.

The course was taught by:

University of Southern California Institute of Safety and Systems Management

Official course name:

Flight Safety Officer Course

I graduated on August 16, 1985. In the date style of the military: 16Aug85.

In practice, the course focused on investigating incidents and accidents. Now, many years later, I have two memories of the school. (Besides spending two summer months in SoCal, which was a lot of fun!).

Helicopters are unnatural and shouldn’t actually fly. Too many ways exist for a helicopter to fall out of the sky.

The psychiatrist’s lectures were very informative. The instructor’s point was that pilots needed to compartmentalize their lives mentally. When a pilot was flying, he had to shut out all other parts of his life, such as family or squadron drama. Accidents happened when a pilot would get mentally stressed enough that his boxes would start bleeding into each other.

That part of the course helped me understand a lot about my general nature as a cold-hearted a-hole. My boxes let me stay focused, not distracted, and able to ignore what I consider noise.

As the squadron safety officer, my duties primarily involved investigating incidents associated with flying and maintenance. I didn’t stand up before the squadron and give safety lectures. I would get notices that an event or incident had occurred, and I would track down the details, determine what happened, and make recommendations to the relevant commanding officers.

Being an FCF Pilot kept me in closer contact with maintenance than the typical squadron pilot. The maintenance chiefs and I worked as a team to figure out why incidents happened and how to keep them from repeating. It was very proactive safety work.

When the Air Force experienced an aircraft crash or pilot fatality, called a Class A incident, the Air Force would convene an accident investigation board. Air Force rules required a Class A Accident Investigation Board to have a safety school graduate who flew the same type of aircraft as the investigating officer. I was the Investigating Officer on one Board investigating an F-16 crash. It was a tremendously interesting experience and a story for an upcoming post.

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