FMCSA is in the midst of a major initiative to improve the effectiveness of the Agency's compliance and enforcement process. The IRT believes that the current operating dynamics with FMCSA require significant changes. Without them, the organization will have great difficulty enhancing its safety oversight of the motor carrier industry to the level everyone desires.

If there is a national discussion about business aviation, it should be about how these assets are best used, not whether companies should be required to arbitrarily dispose of aircraft.

The bottom line is to make sure you have a healthy internal business culture, then carefully develop the crucial strategic relationships that will enable both of you to be more successful. You will be working with the needs of your customer's customer, which will drive up your perceived value throughout the value chain.

We reaffirmed the value of the FAA's voluntary disclosure programs as vital to continuing to improve safety. The programs are in line with modern regulatory practice and have suitably clear boundaries. We also reaffirmed how important it is for the FAA to comply with the guidelines and restrictions surrounding the voluntary disclosure programs to guarantee these programs' integrity and to prevent the erosion of industry's compliance incentives.

The central issue running throughout the April 2008 congressional hearings, and all the attendant publicity, was whether the FAA had succumbed to excessively "cozy" relationships with the airlines, routinely failed to take proper enforcement action, and allowed non-compliant airlines to escape penalties by using the voluntary disclosure programs without fixing their underlying safety problems.

This paper addresses airline SMS initiatives from a key but often overlooked aspect - its "below the wing" employee ground safety performance. We will look at the need and how it can be tackled with a SMS context. Then we will see how a strong operating discipline now taking hold at one airline is having an impact well beyond the employee injury numbers.

You need absolute clarity and accountability, and it is hard for management to consistently achieve that. A significant cultural element exists in all these issues. Are you more enforcement oriented or collaborative oriented? Too much in either direction creates problems. That is why you need a strong manager.
-William McCabe, Independent Review Team panel member

Voice of Experience: "In many of my missions there has been an inherent risk. The question is: Am I managing it? Or, how well am I managing that inherent risk to get me to an acceptable level of exposure? The problem is that risk aversion will lead you to inaction, which is probably the worst thing you can do. The biggest risk is inaction."
–William O. McCabe, Former B-52 pilot, Pentagon official, DuPont executive

A clear, respectful, commonly understood regulatory safety oversight relationship enables you and your inspectors to more successfully manage risk. It enables healthier cooperation and better withstands stressors inside and outside the relationship. Your mutual result: improved safety for the traveling public.

Most importantly, when I want a top notch, fun to read, professional periodical that keeps me abreast of what's going on in our global business aviation community, I know I can always count on B/CA.

William O. McCabe has formed The McCabe Group aerospace/aviation consulting firm, Newark, Del. His is retired global managing director for aviation for the DuPont Co.

McCabe's perspective on training is further shaped by DuPont's esteemed "safety culture" - in which the goal of safety is achieved in part by an emphasis on employee support and interdependence.