The initiative is part of a program of meetings promoted throughout the national territory by the Air Force, in collaboration with the Aero Club d’Italia. On Friday, May 18, as part of the Memorandum of Understanding in force between the Air Force and the Aero Club d’Italia (AeCI), the Flight Safety seminar was held at the 70th Squadron in Latina. This seminar aimed to disseminate and raise awareness about the issues related to Flight Safety (SV), thereby achieving an improvement in the safety standards of flight operations.
The activities had an attentive and participatory audience, pilots of Commercial Aviation, General (A.G.), of the Paragliding and Sports Flight (VDS), Paragliding Associations, APR, and Paratroopers, who carry out flight activities at the numerous airfields and flight fields present in the Pontine territory, as well as representatives of the Flight Departments of the Armed Forces and Armed Bodies of the State that operate daily within the Control Zone (CTR) of Latina and in its adjacent areas. On this occasion, several students of the Paritario Technical Institute “Nobile Aviation College” in Rome were also present as auditors.
The seminar was opened by Colonel Luca Vitali, Commander of the 70th Air Wing, who, after welcoming the more than 100 participants, thanked Brigadier General Antonio Maurizio Agrusti, Inspector for Flight Safety of the I.S.V., for choosing the Pontina Flight School as the venue for this important series of meetings, and the authorities present, including General D’Accolti, Director General of the Ae.C.I., Professor Michele Buonsanti, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Reggio Calabria, Mr. Massimiliano Colantoni, Head of Operational Safety at Ciampino Airport ENAV, and Lieutenant Colonel Filippo Conti of the Flight Safety Inspectorate for participating as speakers for the day.
The topics covered during the presentations were diverse, such as the analysis of the incidents that occurred; the lack of collisions and unauthorized penetrations in controlled airspace; communication as a factor relevant in flight operations, starting from Crew Resource Management (CRM) to Single Pilot Resource Management, highlighting all aspects related to the “Human Factor”, the human element, placing particular emphasis on error, as one of the possible causes of an incident/flight accident.
The interest aroused in the audience was remarkable, and numerous were the interventions through which each pilot and staff member was able to share their experience, thus demonstrating how necessary these initiatives are to bring the world of civil aviation closer to that of military aviation in the common aim of preventing and increasing “flight safety”.
At the 70th Wing, which reports to the Italian Air Force Schools Command and 3rd Air Region of Bari, flight training courses have been conducted for about sixty years for the selection and training of future military pilots for the Italian Air Force, other Armed Forces and State Armed Corps, and several foreign countries.
