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Today's aircrews grew up in a "why" society. Why should I do this? Why is this important? Why should I care? It is not surprising; people are bombarded daily by social, visual, and audio media at an unprecedented level with information that often conflicts, frequently directs a change in behavior, or requires additional effort to comply. Pure survival skills dictate the need to question, verify, and interpret everything.
This article provides verifiable evidence on multiple levels for WHY having an active ASAP program to proactively report actual as well as potential safety issues and/or concerns is beneficial to the U.S. Air Force. The success already achieved by the current program, operating at such a low power setting, is amazing. Who knows what can be achieved when the throttle is pushed to the firewall!
First, an active ASAP program will provide leadership, trainers, and aircrews with an aggregate view of issues affecting the safe and efficient execution of the mission. For example, of the 3,200+ ASAPs submitted, 13.4 percent were related to altitude deviations. Add the number of ASAPs related to navigation errors and the rate jumps to 19.7 percent. These ASAPs show a fairly even mix of automation errors, communication breakdowns between crew members and АТС, task saturations, and poor CRM/TEM skills.
This flight analysis highlights areas to monitor for leadership, provides trainers with the "meat" to emphasize the importance of why certain techniques are used to mitigate specific threats, and enables aircrews to not only "chair fly" specific mission profiles but also consider how they would address the threats the ASAP submitters encountered. None of these benefits are available if aircrews don't submit ASAPs.
An active ASAP program enriches the search tool incorporated in the ASAP software to allow an individual to search for and likely find numerous ASAPs about a specific event, location, or MDS. For example, your mission is scheduled for an ERO so you search the ASAP database and find 23 related ASAPs. Perhaps, if your mission is planned for a...