USPA Reformation Through:

Continuous Oversight, At No Cost, Through the Use of Highly Qualified Volunteers

Despite having knowledge of the incidents reported in the post, “Much is Awry in Ridgely”, the USPA Regional Director recommended Ben Harris, the owner of Skydive Chesapeake, for the position of S&TA at the drop zone. He got the job. Although every S&TA who derives income from the drop zone has to reconcile his interests as an independent Safety Officer with his role as a revenue and cost conscious employee or contractor, the conflict of interest at Skydive Chesapeake couldn’t be clearer, or more dangerous.

After the 2008 "Special Investigation Report", SIR-08/01, where the NTSB studied 32 fatal crashes, the Board concluded that more needed to be done regarding aircraft airworthiness, piloting, surveillance (by the FAA), and restraints (seat belts).

Regarding surveillance they recommended that the FAA conduct inspections of drop zones. After that the FAA, by Federal Order, did regular inspections but after the accident in Hawaii in June of 2019 where a non-airworthy King Air 65-A90 crashed killing ten skydivers and the pilot the FAA wrote in the Official Correspondence that their inspection wasn’t intended to uncover the deficiencies in that aircraft that contributed to the accident. They wrote that skydivers aren’t passengers and therefor the FAA’s responsibilities regarding passenger safety didn’t apply.

Since the FAA doesn’t regard skydivers as passengers, the only oversight relative to aircraft airworthiness by the USPA for Skydive Chesapeake is a one page form that the owner occasionally submits to them attesting to compliance to one of four Part 91 inspection criteria.

The owner of Skydive Chesapeake broke his Group Membership Pledge very shortly after signing it. The operator at Oahu Parachute Center also lacked the integrity to honor his. Should it be expected either would maintain a true safety culture without help and oversight?

A cost free solution would be to enlist USPA members, of which there are 40,000, to provide some of that oversight. What if the USPA encouraged all Group Members to support the formation of safety committees staffed by volunteer USPA members at their drop zones? To qualify, committee members would have to be C or D license holders, pilots, A&Ps, FAA DARs or safety professionals. Another criteria would be that they not derive anything more than incidental income from the drop zone.

Places like Skydive Chicago or Perris have enough revenue to do most, if not all the things that USPA’s Skydiving Aircraft Operations Manual and the drop zone’s Flight Operations Handbook call for with paid staff members. For those drop zones the need for a committee of volunteers is less urgent but it would still have value and their role of oversight could still be vital. For operations like the Oahu Parachute Center or Skydive Chesapeake independent oversight is absolutely critical. Fulfilling specific, day-to-day functions and services at drop zones with revenue problems would allow them to go further toward optimizing procedures and equipment and thereby increasing safety.

New drop zones or ones that serve small markets are less likely to hire Jumpmasters, load masters, boarding escorts, landing monitors and all the other personnel to operate as safely as the manuals would have it. It is undeniable that they are also more likely to cut corners when it comes to safety. (Graphic evidence of that is provided with the picture at the top of this post.)

Group Membership Categorization

To mitigate the cost and alleviate the condition of more roles to fill than individuals to fill them a different organization is in order. What if there were two categories of USPA Group Members? One is a “Legacy” Group Member while the other is a “Committee” Group Member and the drop zone owner would choose the type.

The USPA’s Group Membership Manual would change to add a “Type of Group Membership” section, which would include the terms of the two categories.

Legacy Group Member

Operators who choose this category of Group Membership provide most or all of the functions and services called for in USPA’s Skydiving Aircraft Operations Manual and the drop zone’s Flight Operations Handbook with paid staff members. Functions and services called for in the Aircraft and Flight Operations manuals not carried out by paid personnel may be provided by qualified volunteers who are members of a formally recognized and instituted drop zone Safety Committee according to terms outlined in the following section; “Safety Committee Group Member”.

Safety Committee Group Member

These Group Members use qualified volunteers who are members of a formally recognized and instituted drop zone Safety Committee to provide some of the functions and services called for in USPA’s Skydiving Aircraft Operations Manual and the drop zone’s Flight Operations Handbook.

A True Safety Culture

In this system volunteers provide oversight. The cost to provide the functions and services called for in USPA’s Skydiving Aircraft Operations Manual and the drop zone’s Flight Operations Handbook is mitigated. Consequently, it will be expected and the Group Member Pledge will state, that the Group Member will do his best to provide every function and service called for in both manuals. In such a system, drop zones can be rated. Those who provide most or all of the safety related functions most or all of the time will be rated more highly than those that don't.

This new system calls for USPA members to be actively involved in the safety of every jump. They, in fact, will be elements of a working and ever present Safety Culture.

In a 2008 report titled, “The Safety Culture Indicator Scale Measurement System (SCISMS)”, the FAA states that Safety Culture is, “an enduring value”, common to, “each member of each group in every level of an organization. It refers to the extent to which individuals and groups will commit to personal responsibility for safety; act to preserve, enhance and communicate safety information; strive to actively learn, adapt and modify behavior based on lessons learned from mistakes; and be HELD ACCOUNTABLE OR STRIVE TO BE HONORED in association with these values.

Drop zones are businesses. Currently, USPA license holders are not members of the organization to which the safety culture applies. They are customers. Safety is integral to business operations, not customer relations, so jumpers are NOT honored within the organization for association with the values stated in the definition. Safety Committees would consist of rank and file members of the jumping community whose efforts would be recognized daily and therefor honored.

Terms:

Whistle Blower Protection

From the points made in previous posts in this blog, particularly those concerning conflicts of interest, it’s clear that when it comes to safety oversight, the current methods are insufficient. The NTSB has learned, and the record indicates, that there are a lot of cracks through which a resource limited, overworked or unscrupulous operator could pass. Currently, if a regular skydiver sees an operator ignoring, or worse, exploiting such a crack he’s on his own. A Safety Committee, operating with the full cooperation of the owner, would give anyone with a concern someone to go to.

The USPA does have a whistle blower policy. It is Appendix B of the Governance Manual. It covers directors, officers, employees and contractors of the Organization, not members.

It is Viable

This is viable. Americans volunteer more than almost any society in the world. Drop zones are quite representative of the country so there won’t be a shortage of people who want to join the committee. Ben Harris, Skydive Chesapeake’s co-owner, wrote that there needs to be a divide between his operation and the community. Every community affected by his operation including skydivers, the drop zone’s neighbors, the town of Ridgely, the aviation community in general and even Harris’ own interests stand to benefit from such a reform.