Flight Safety Foundation’s 2021 Summit to Study Safety Leadership

The Flight Safety Foundation is set to present their 74th annual International Air Safety Summit on September 21 to 22 as a virtual event on the GoToWebinar platform.

The 2021 theme is “Safety Leadership” and will explore the need for leaders to play a vital role when it comes to managing aviation safety.

“Leadership’s involvement is key to safety cultures,” the foundation said. “While commitment to safety and operational integrity begins with management, management alone cannot drive the entire culture. For a culture of safety to flourish, it must be embedded throughout the organization—and that is why safety leadership matters.

“A safety culture can’t sustain itself without great safety leaders.”

The summit has been held annually since 1947 and is said to be one of aviation’s premier safety summits, drawing as many as 325 representatives from more than 50 countries.

Among the issues for scheduled airlines, manufacturers and equipment suppliers, trainers, flight crews, maintenance personnel, and industry executives covered by the summit:

”New Entrants into the Airspace System: Embedding Safety Culture,” will be moderated by Deborah Kirkman, Flight Safety Foundation director, advanced aviation systems. Joining Kirkman will be Jon Hanlon, the director of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) maintenance & airworthiness at Zipline, and Tim Logan, spaceline safety director at Virgin Galactic. This session will dive deep into the topic of how to get a better understanding of the current and future safety risk management needs for commercial and civil UAS operations and commercial space programs.

“Whether crewmembers are operating vehicles remotely or the vehicle is operating autonomously, managing risks starts well ahead of executing the flight,” the foundation said in a statement. “How can we lead the next generation of new entrants into the airspace system and help to form a safety culture that builds on the best of what is in place today?”

In their “Current Cybersecurity Landscape in the Aviation Industry” session, Speaker Steve Luczynski of Aerospace Village will dig into the “increasing adoption of connected technologies” and how these technologies expose the aviation industry to new types of risks.

The session will look at how these risks can affect anything across the aviation infrastructure, including:

Luczynski will also discuss ways to better manage aviation cybersecurity risk globally by building stronger relationships.

All non-members who register for IASS 2021 automatically receive Flight Safety Foundation membership through 2022.

A look at all of the seven IASS 2021 sessions is available here.