Formed as a tool to encourage and facilitate the sharing of air show accident and safety information, the International Air Show Safety Team (IASST) held its first meeting on Saturday, December 2, in Las Vegas, just ahead of the 2017 ICAS Convention.
Regulators and air show industry representatives from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Switzerland, and the United States attended the first IASST meeting to help launch the new organization, but individuals and organizations from many other countries – New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, much of Europe – have also expressed interest. The new group will conduct most of its work virtually via the internet, and its initial structure will be based loosely on the International Helicopter Safety Team, an organization formed in 2005, that is widely credited with significantly reducing the number of helicopter accidents worldwide during the last decade.
The first IASST meeting in Las Vegas focused on methods and timelines for collecting data on every air show accident during the last 20 years from every country willing to participate. The U.S. and Brazil agreed to begin that process by collecting data and working together to build a flexible database that includes all relevant information from each accident. When these initial steps are completed, other countries will contribute their data and all of the information will be analyzed to identify hazards, trends and potential tactics, tools and techniques for mitigating risk.
