What the Aviation Safety Action Program Taught Me about Mental Health and Guns

By Dan Zimmerman

Reader Eric L. writes:

In 1966 the Director of the Bureau of Safety of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board, Bobbie R. Allen, referred to the vast amount of accumulated aviation safety incident information as “a sleeping giant”. He noted that fear of legal liability or disciplinary action prevented dissemination of information and therefore rendered it valueless to those who were tasked with improving the safety of the aviation system. Boiled down, it means that those who made mistakes (pilots, dispatchers, controllers, and mechanics) were not reporting those mistakes because of a fear of termination with their company or revocation of their operating license. Mr. Allen further said . . .

In the event that fear of exposure cannot be overcome by other means, it might be profitable if we explored a system of incident reporting which would assure a substantial flow of vital information to the computer for processing, and at the same time, would provide some method designed to effectively eliminate the personal aspect of the individual occurrences so that the information derived would be helpful to all and harmful to none.

In layman’s terms he advocated a way for personnel to report mistakes to an appropriate agency and, if the …read more

Source:: Truth About Guns