I n January 2016, NATA launched the new General Aviation Misfueling Prevention online pro- gram at www.preventmisfueling.com as a free supplement to exist- ing Safety 1st programs. Aimed at eliminating some of the in- dustry’s most-preventable, but potentially most-catastrophic accidents, the program is offered as an industry-wide resource and was developed under grants from Eastern Aviation Fuels, EPIC Aviation, Phillips 66 and others. “We created four different tracks for the training program because we wanted to address each of the key people who can prevent misfueling: pilots, line service professionals, FBO customer service representatives, and FBO managers,” said Michael France, NATA’s Director of Safety and Training. “Over the last year and a half, there have been several misfueling-related accidents, so there was general consensus from our Safety Committee that this is an area of concern that needs to be ad- dressed above and beyond what’s in our existing formal training programs and that can be used by people who are unfamiliar with Safety 1st Misfueling is when an incor- .” resources, and e-learning content designed to heighten awareness for all stakeholders—was developed with assistance from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). It has been an early hit with more than 1,500 people completing the program in its first two months— and that number continues to grow. “There was a rash of these kinds of accidents in the 1980s, some of them fatal and lots of near misses, so this is not a new problem; but it is one that is 100 percent pre- ventable, so the fact that we’re still seeing any of these incidents at all is troubling to say the least,” says Mike Mooney, Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at EPIC Aviation, who helped edit the new train- ing materials. “I’ve been preaching about this for multiple decades now, and it continues to be frustrating. There are a number of measures in place to prevent misfueling, some of them mechanical—like restrictive nozzles—and some in procedures and training. If those barriers aren’t in place or if you remove those barriers out of convenience, you’re eventu- ally going to run into problems.” 1,602 certificates granted through the misfueling preven- tion program as of March 31, 2016. Of those: Pilot track: 110 CSR track: 293 Line Service Professional track: 979 FBO Manager track: 219 quantity of fuel requested, and registration and tail number of the aircraft to be fueled; it’s never enough to simply say “fill ‘er up.” The stakes couldn’t be higher, Mooney emphasized: “When the wrong fuel is in an aircraft, it causes serious problems: the engine starts to ingest the fuel, which causes a detonation, and you’ll have your fuel mixture exploding at exactly the wrong time, just after takeoff, which usually results in the engine literally coming apart: I’ve seen pictures of ‘In some businesses, there’s no room for error.’ rect grade of fuel is delivered into an aircraft. It can lead to ignition failure, vapor lock and engine fail- ure, and/or total engine failure. The new NATA training program— featuring operational best prac- tices, links to misfueling prevention Aviation Business Journal | 1st Quarter 2016 For FBO Managers and Line Service Professionals, the emphasis is on proper fuel orders, selective spout usage and the grade verifica- tion process. Industry standards dictate that all fuel orders must include the grade of fuel requested, pistons with holes in them. I’ll never forget watching the TV news story about one near-miss, where the local news affiliate has a picture of a wheat field on fire and a burning plane in the background and the reporter Continued on page 29 27
