Photo By Patricia Dubiel | CW3 Nicholas Sciacca (second from left), 1st Battalion, 5th Aviation Regiment, holds...... read more read more
Sciacca is the recipient of the 2018 Army Aviator Association of America’s James H. McClellan Army Aviation Safety Award and is the AAAA Safety Officer of the Year. Lt. Col. Connie M. Lane, 1st Bn, 5th Avn Reg battalion commander, nominated Sciacca for the award.
“Mister Sciacca is the best safety officer I have worked with in my 18 years with Army aviation,” said Lane. “I believe he represents the very best, and he is the backbone of the 5th Aviation Regiment’s safety program.”
Sciacca has been a safety officer since 2013 and was assigned to Fort Polk in 2017. Some of the accomplishments that led to his selection as Safety Officer of the Year include:
• Organized and executed four quarterly battalion safety days, ensuring every Soldier received the required training by offering one-on-one or small group training for those who couldn’t attend safety days due to competing requirements.
• Scheduled 12 monthly battalion safety and standardization meetings to help companies identify hazards and develop solutions to mitigate risk. Considering the potential for crew fatigue with only 36 aviators flying 8,246.6 hours in 2018 — an operational tempo comparable to a combat deployment — Sciacca created an aggressive crew reset policy that resulted in zero aviation accidents for the battalion.
• Developed and maintained a digital risk assessment worksheet, or RAW, that allows aircrews to rapidly identify hazards, implement controls and engage with briefers and approval authorities to manage risks appropriately. The RAW also forces aircrews to conduct an after action review through checklists to improve coordination, identify hazards and changes in the local flight area and return feedback to the battalion aircrews.
• On the ground, Sciacca’s safety instructions were instrumental to the battalion’s qualification of 210 Soldiers through five M9 (pistol) and M4 (rifle) ranges with no accidents.
• The 17-man rigger section packed more than 4,000 parachutes and supported and jumped on 43 occasions with zero malfunctions thanks to Sciacca’s safety program. The section also conducted equipment and aerial delivery with the U.S. Air Force during 10 Joint Readiness Training Center rotations, air-dropping more than 450 containerized delivery systems without incident.
• Prepared the battalion for an Aviation Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and Department of Evaluations and Standards visit in July 2018 by mentoring subordinate safety officers, company commanders and battalion staff. His efforts resulted in a score of 92 percent on the ARMS safety checklist with no major deficiencies. In September 2018, the safety program was again inspected during the Organizational Inspection Program, earning a 100 percent score and recognition as the best safety program at Fort Polk.
• As an aviator, Sciacca maintains his pilot-in-command rating for both the LUH-72 Lakota and UH-60 Blackhawk. In 2018, he flew 305.6 hours, including 88.4 night missions, without any accidents. Over the course of his 12-year aviation career, Sciacca has amassed 2,028.6 total hours — 542.7 of which were at night and 926.1 of which were in combat — with no accidents.
“I take my job seriously,” Sciacca explained. “If anything happened to one of my Soldiers, I wouldn’t want to have the regret of wondering if I had said something or failed to say something, would things be different? You just don’t know if something you say or point out could save someone’s life some day.”
The award was presented to Sciacca April 15 during the annual AAAA summit held in Nashville, Tennessee. His command leadership, Lane and Master Sgt. Carlos Campos, acting command sergeant major, attended the event to support Sciacca.
Lane said Sciacca was an exceptional safety officer.
“Some safety officers just sit wherever they feel comfortable in safety and don’t try to branch out or do much more than what is required,” Lane said. “But over the past year with Mister Sciacca I have noticed that he does reach out beyond his assigned duties. His knowledge and expertise about the Federal Aviation Administration, air space, drones, and other subjects well exceeds his rank. If he sees something that is not being done he will take the lead and complete that task. He expands past his scope of duty and takes on additional responsibilities, and that is why I nominated him for this award. He deserves it.”
The Army has more than 16 combat aviation brigades' worth of combat power to sustain existing requirements, said Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, deputy commander of Army Forces Command April 15 the AAAA summit.
In the active component, the deployment-to-dwell ratio now stands at about one to two years, with some CABs turning slightly faster to execute the next mission, she said.
Expeditionary CABs in the reserve component have a mobilization-to-dwell ratio of about one to five years, while medical evacuation and heavy lift units operate at just under one to four.
When not deployed, units regularly conduct home-station training, rotations to combat training centers, humanitarian assistance and other duties in support of homeland defense.
"If anyone says we have extra, additional aviation assets just sitting around, they are absolutely misinformed," Richardson said. "There is no excess capacity."
Since FORSCOM began intensive reviews of aviation brigades three years ago, readiness rates have increased about 15 percent in aggregate, she said.
"Every action we take, every flight that we fly, every repair part we put on an aircraft, every safety inspection, must equate to readiness," she said.
This is part of the Army's No. 1 priority, she said, to build the most ready and capable force possible by 2022. At that time, the focus will then shift to create a modern force by 2028, followed by multi-domain dominance by 2034.
| Date Taken: | 04.25.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.25.2019 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 319508 |
| Location: | FORT POLK, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 91 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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