The Top Five Safety Issues for Business Jets

There are many recent and upcoming aviation mandates that require compliance. These mandates are designed to make the skies safer and flights more efficient, so it’s important to begin your upgrades as soon as possible. Owners, operators and pilots of business jets deal with distinct safety issues. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) keeps a list of safety focus areas, which it updates regularly. Here are five issues that frequently make the list and that our customers deal with daily.

Pilot Fatigue and Workload. The NBAA names the single pilot accident rate and pilot distractions as major safety focus areas. Because business aviation pilots may fly alone or have a less predictable schedule than those working for an airline, pilot fatigue is a major issue. To help, we combine many of our advanced communication and situational awareness tools into an integrated toolset and have designed our cockpit systems to streamline pilot work and reduce fatigue.

Runway Safety. Nearly a third of business aviation accidents are runway excursions, costing the industry an estimated $900 million annually.1 Situational awareness tools like SmartRunway and SmartLanding can give pilots timely information to help ensure that they are accurately navigating and landing on the correct runways and taxiways.

Ground Handling Collisions. Coordinating movements on the ground is vital to ensuring safety for passengers, aircraft and the ground crew that service them. This is particularly true in the many smaller airports that business jets frequent. Honeywell Forge Ground Handling can help those airports and ground handlers create a safer ground experience and complete their tasks more efficiently—including gaining up to 5% incremental revenue with better tracking and control.

Loss of Control in-Flight. Loss of control in-flight (LOC-I) accidents result in more fatalities in business aviation than any other category of accident,1 making it one of the top focus areas for both the NBAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Pilot training in combination with Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems can help address this all-too-common issue.

Ignoring Mandates. Aviation authorities like the FAA, EASA and CAAC frequently publish mandates designed to make airspaces safer. Unfortunately, smaller operators sometimes attempt to avoid these upgrades. They shouldn’t. Mandates such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast Out (ADS-B Out) and Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) not only improve safety for all in the airspace, they can help operators maximize efficiency and improve operations.

No matter which safety hazards are facing your organization, Honeywell can help. With equipment on nearly every aircraft in flight today and at more than 500 airports around the world, we have the solutions and experience to help you improve safety on all business aviation platforms.