Photo By Kelly Morris | Fort Novosel participates in an Army-wide aviation safety stand-down with scheduled...... read more read more
The U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence participated in an Army-wide aviation safety stand-down May 1, 2023.
In the three years prior to Fiscal Year 2023, Army aviation had its lowest incident rate in its history. The stand-down, including a mandatory pause of rotary-wing flight operations for additional safety training, was directed by the Department of the Army after recent Army aviation mishaps in Alabama, Alaska, and Kentucky claimed the lives of 14 aircrew members.
Last week, two AH-64 Apache helicopters collided midair while returning from a training mission near Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Three Soldiers were killed and another was hospitalized in that incident. A month earlier, nine Soldiers were killed during a routine night training flight near Fort Campbell, Ky., when their HH-60 Black Hawks collided. Another accident involving the Tennessee Army National Guard also claimed two lives.
While the incidents remain under investigation, there is no indication of any pattern among the mishaps.
Safety stand-down sessions at Fort Novosel began Monday with a moment of silence to remember the aviation Soldiers, their families and friends.
“The loss of any one of you or any one of our Soldiers is tragic," said Maj. Gen. Michael C. McCurry, who serves as the USAACE and Fort Novosel commander and Army Aviation branch chief.
"It’s time for us to pause to reevaluate a couple of things that we are doing across the force, including here in (the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command), and to make sure that when we go out there and you break friction with the ground that we are applying the same level of discipline, the same level of training management, the same level of risk management that we would apply if we were going out to do a live fire exercise,” McCurry said.
When flight school students earn their wings at Fort Novosel, it is a “license to learn,” McCurry said.
“You’re not done,” McCurry said. “You‘re going to go out to your units, and you need to saddle up next to that senior warrant officer, whether you’re a lieutenant or W1, and you need to be a sponge...to figure out how you’re going to make pilot in command and how you’re going to carry forward everything that those who have gone before you have laid out.”
McCurry thanked the instructors in the audience for what they do every day to keep aviators and crews safe and prepare them to go out and do missions.
“Here In TRADOC we are blessed with the amount of experience we have sitting at your tables every day and the rigorous process that we go through at the flight platoon level to make sure you’re safe. We want you to understand…what it’s going to be like when you get out into the force,” McCurry said.
In the Aviation profession when Soldiers see something that isn’t right, they say something, McCurry explained.
He called for feedback from the stand-down discussions to inform his future conversations with senior leaders.
Sessions led by the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center and USAACE leaders, as well as breakout sessions by-airframe focused on safety statistics and trends, mission approval and risk management, training management, multi-ship operations, and an aviation maintenance training plan review.
With safety as a top priority, the goal for the training was to improve overall readiness of the force and ensure commanders and leaders at all levels are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect Soldiers.
“The 110th Aviation Brigade is exceptional in that we have probably the most experienced formation in our instructor pilot cohort than anywhere else out in the Army aviation community today, so listen to those folks, listen to the lesson that they are doing, write that stuff down, think about it,” said Col. Michael S. Johnson, 110th Aviation Brigade commander.
Active-duty Soldiers were directed to complete the 24-hour stand-down between May 1st and 5th, while Army National Guard and Reserve Soldiers are to complete the training to coincide with their training schedules not later than May 31.
| Date Taken: | 05.01.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.01.2023 20:03 |
| Story ID: | 443771 |
| Location: | FORT NOVOSEL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 743 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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