From Alaska Flying to Aviation Safety Leadership | Mike Kunkel - Part I - Ep: 105

Welcome to the Vertical MRO Podcast, brought to you by HeliCASTS and in partnership with Vertical Plus.

In this episode, Ronnie sits down with Mike Kunkel, safety management system program manager at PG&E, to discuss his path through aviation and the experiences that shaped his approach to safety leadership.

The conversation begins with Mike’s early flying experiences in Alaska and his time supporting law enforcement aviation operations, offering a firsthand look at the operational environments, decision-making, and responsibilities that come with mission-driven flying.

As the discussion develops, Mike shares how those experiences influenced his perspective on aviation safety, communication, and organizational culture.

For operators, maintainers, and aviation professionals, Part I provides a grounded look at the real-world operational background behind today’s conversations around safety management and just culture.

Special thanks to this episode's sponsors, Precision Aviation Group and Robinson Helicopter.

Also, be sure to check out Vertical MRO's Instagram channel for even more awesome content highlighting the awesome work being done to keep the rotorcraft community flying!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Vertical MRO podcast, where we dive into the world of helicopter maintenance, repair, and overhaul. In each episode, we talk with the technicians, engineers, and experts who keep helicopters flying. Because at the end of the day, no maintenance, no mission.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Most CEO's mandate is to look at culture. Patty Poppy. When she came to PGE, we had a lot of things wrong in our organization. And over the last five years, she has dramatically changed us. And it's fantastic. Like when she started, one of the things she kept saying was leading with love. I'll let you guess how that went over at a utility, leading with love. The first time we heard it.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Probably more expected in the state of California with the hippie culture back in the San Francisco and various other things. But many places probably is not the way that it goes over. Generating power every day. Keep the lights on. I don't care about the rest.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, as we started to hear that message more and more and getting more clarity from her as she leads, right? When you see someone on the job site and they're not wearing their hard hat, and you go, hey man, do you need a hard hat? I got an extra one. That's leading with love. It's about, yeah, you're giving grace, but you're holding each of your coworkers to a high standard to make sure that everyone goes home at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Welcome to the Vertico MRO podcast, brought to you by Helicast, and in partnership with Vertical Plus. In this episode, Ronnie sits down with Mike Kunkel, safety management system program manager at PGE to discuss his path through aviation and the experience that shaped his approach to safety leadership. The conversation begins with Mike's early flying experience in Alaska and his time supporting law enforcement aviation operations, offering a first-hand look at the operational environments, decision making, and responsibilities that come with mission-driven flying. As the discussion develops, Mike shares how these experiences influence his perspectives on aviation safety, communication, and organizational culture. For operators, maintainers, and aviation professionals, part one provides a grounded look at the real-world operational background behind today's conversations around safety management and just culture. Special thanks to this episode's sponsors, Precision Aviation Group and Robinson Helicopter. Also be sure to check out Vertical MRO's Instagram channel for even more awesome content highlighting the awesome work that's been done to keep their Robocurf community fly. Welcome to the Vertical MRO podcast. I'm Ronnie Reese, your host for today. And our topic today is about safety. Everyone in aviation says they have a strong safety culture, but if your technicians hesitate to report a mistake, if your pilots second guess whether to speak up, then the truth is you don't. Today we're talking about something that separates good operators from great ones. Just culture. What does that actually look like in the real world? Not in a manual, not in a policy, but in day-to-day operations, under pressure, with real consequences. And more importantly, how do you build a culture where people speak up early enough and prevent the next incident? To help us answer that, we've got somebody who's doing this at scale every single day. Joining us today is Mike Kunkel, Safety Management System Program Manager at PG ⁇ E. Mike brings decades of aviation experience, both as a pilot and as a safety leader. And today he's responsible for overseeing safety across one of the most complex aviation environments out there, including a large network of contractor helicopter operators. Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. Great to be here. Can you introduce yourself to the audience? Talk about who you are, where you came from, maybe not from the embryo, but you know, through life.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah, thanks, Rodney. So uh I'm Mike Hunkel, uh work for PG ⁇ E as the SMS program manager, been with PG ⁇ E for four years, did quite a bit of air ambulance uh before that, did some flight instruction, flew in Alaska, flew in Vegas, out to the Grand Canyon, the San Francisco Bay Area a lot as well, and uh and here in California.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So uh maybe all the way back to the embryo after all, the pilot aspect. When when did you get that bug?

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Oh early, early. I think I was probably four.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Really?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

I I knew I wanted to fly. Yeah, and it was it's interesting. I do fly airplanes, but the passion was always for helicopters. So how did how did when was your first flight? Uh I was 12. I was at a county fair, it was a Bell 47. Oh, wow. And I remember the pilot looked so bored. And as a 12-year-old, I was like, how could how could this be boring? This is amazing. Like, we're hundreds of feet in the air. I mean, just big old smile. And I remember that when I when I then switched places uh in spirit with that gentleman uh many decades later to uh you know try and have a smile on my face and remember that this is this is a lot of people's first time in the air, and they'll remember this.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So when that bug hit, did you suddenly decide that's what you want to do for a living? What what what was your next step in your your middle school to high school career and your transition into the wonderful world of aviation?

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Yeah, great question. So while at university, uh Desert Storm uh was was getting close to starting, and I definitely felt you know patriotic duty. Uh joined the U.S. Navy, uh was stationed in Italy. I was a surface warfare guy. I was a anti-submarine. Worked in the anti-submarine community as a SOR technician on a guided missile cruiser. And really, I think that exposure in the Navy was my first introduction to formal safety. Uh I had never seen formal safety before, but the Navy, uh the military in general has has a pretty good grasp on how that actually works and what's effective.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

So then uh how did you just you got out of the Navy and you said you want to become a pilot when you grew up? Because you saw all those uh Seahawks or 46s or whatever else flying flying overhead, and you're like, I want to go do that, or what how did you make that transition?

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Well, that was there was an option to maybe stay in, but I knew I I had to give the pilot thing a shot. So talked to a lot of the pilots on board and uh got some good advice, took the GI Bill and went out to Oakland, California to see our Academy of Aeronautics and learned to fly. Uh fixed wing first at that point? Helicopters first, yeah. And then uh got a position teaching at that same school.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Uh what were you flying in at that time? 206s or or it was an R22 heavy. Well, it was heavy when I was in it. But yeah. Testing the max gross weight at that point in time, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah, and actually that those lessons really uh were pretty formative. You can be in the biggest, most powerful thing that flies, but if you don't know how to manage your power, if you're always spoiled with it, uh, you know, that's not a skill you get. But um, you know, and some in the Schweitzer as well, the 300, I have some time in that too. So it was always pretty um putting the fuel to the point where we can have you know a meaningful lesson, but that almost always meant that the first uh little bit you had to you had to work uh and you had to have good airmanship on that first takeoff for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

And then uh, you know, we are struggling as an industry not only in the shortage of the maintenance side, but also on the pilot side, right? And you know, the the the trip that you took is probably more what we're experiencing now than the traditional Vietnam coming out of the army, going into the commercial world. You're basically paying for it yourself and building hours. Um, how did you build that hour resume to go up until the air medical, which you know, obviously you need a lot. How what was your next step in that transition?

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Yeah, great question. Um, so a good friend of mine who was kind of a generation of instructors in front of me, he went up to Alaska, uh, worked for a company called Tempsco, and this is before smart. Tempsco's still there. Yeah, it's still there. Still flying every day. Oh, yeah. The brother and sisterhood is strong. When I mention it, people come up and go, Oh, I was there, what year were you there? So fantastic organization, and this is before I'm gonna date myself, but this is before smartphones. So my friend came back with actual pictures in an album. Remember those? And I I started flipping through them. I'm like, oh, that's it, I gotta go to Alaska. And so it was a thousand-hour minimum uh for the initial 135 check ride. I got my thousand hours, got a couple of good recommendations from uh the um the 135 outfit next door to Sear Academy, and I was off to Alaska. Did four years up there. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

And uh how many hours a year did you accrue up there, you think?

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Uh well, so EMS is not much, right? But uh for the tours and stuff, you can probably get 450 a year, maybe 500.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

It's still a good amount of hours to build your resume.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

And it's turbine.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I mean, that was the big thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

It was 135 and it was turbine. I think most things were easier after that initial hire.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So uh building your hours, getting somebody to pay for your hours now with the tourism, which is nice. Uh, did you have your uh tourism voice on your left is Mendenhall Glacier? Did you have your scripts memorized? Can you can you still do it today, Mike?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Wow, that's a little on point. You said Mendenhall Glacier. Yeah, uh, I could probably draw that thing from memory. Um, but with love, right? Um yeah, and you know, we did have the pilot, the pilot's choice. So, you know, once you learned all the 45 mountaintops within the surrounding, you know, 200 square miles, you were signed off to go do, you know, you have a lot more freedom. You had two landings, and depending on where the weather was, you know, did some uh work in Skagway as well, but uh a lot of it was Juno. Yeah, I mean it it was fantastic to meet you know those folks coming uh up to Alaska for the first time. Uh the worst in challenges, uh again, I was doing Medavac as well. So uh there were times where I was finishing a Medevac and I was talking to dispatch and they said, Well, we've got a tour for you if you can do it. Uh and I said, sure. Uh it's gonna just be fun to watch the ambulance come up, transport the patient off, you know, and then reconfigure the aircraft in front of the people as they watch. But they they were usually pretty uh impressed with that, which was good. I mean, they understand that Alaska's pretty rural and for maybe a couple of hundred miles in both directions, do you know? Bartlett Hospital was was the best place for care.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

You know, we we talk about safety and um you're just talking about the weather, right? Um the weather in Alaska can change quite extensively and whether or not you're flying or not. Talk about some of the challenges that you saw from that aspect.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah, well, they were considerable, right? Um it is a geographic uh localized phenomenon to have that much ice having that much influence on the local atmosphere. Um think about opening the freezer, you know, in the middle of the night and you see the light turn on and that that kind of mist that rolls out of the freezer. Um that's something I always thought of. It was something to definitely factor into your risk assessment and keep an eye on, but as long as it was managed, it was it was it was reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And then through the EMS program, getting through there, where where where did you go next?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

So uh I would uh summer in Alaska and I would winter in Vegas. So taking folks out to the canyon from uh McCarran.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

You you're the the snowbird pilot then, huh?

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Yeah. That was it. Yeah, and that was also uh interesting going from extremes, right? I mean, I think my my warmest landing next to the Colorado River was I think it was almost 125. Like it was it was substantial.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And you got into instruction at some point in time?

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Uh well the instruction came first, right? The instruction flight instruction, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Flight instruction was before Alaska.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah. And you're still like what what do you find most passionate? Obviously, flight instruction is a key way to build hours necessarily, but what what are some of the things that you find most interesting about being a flight instructor?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

I I think it definitely teaches you to be nimble and open-minded and creative, because if you're communicating something to your student and it's not sort of you don't get that feedback that they're doing the maneuver correctly, then you know it's on uh us as flight instructors to figure out another way to say that to that student so that they might be able to absorb it that way. If that makes sense. Takes a lot of patience, uh, a lot of quick reactions. Uh yeah, I was I was uh I was surprised almost every flight.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Any uh any one story stand out more than another on your uh most OS moment?

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Well, I have to tell you, um every time I soloed somebody, uh there was definitely some some crossed fingers behind my back. Uh and I learned early on, you know, I would never tell my student the day before that I was gonna solo them so that they could have a good night's sleep. Right. Um and you know, depending on how they did that day, uh it was kind of a bit of a bit of a surprise. I mean, they knew they were where they were in the syllabus. Uh they knew they were coming up to it was lesson 21 or at the end of stage one uh when they would do their solo. So um those were really good moments, very memorable, and uh, you know, I had a a very good uh cadre of students, fortunately.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

And uh let's get in a little bit into your that air medical side. And what what did you find most interesting about doing that, other than you know, the fact that you were basically helping to save a life every time you took off?

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah, uh well, so on the surface from the outside, it's just a cross country. Right? You start here, go there, and then you go here, and then you go back. It's pretty simple. Uh but when you get into it, I mean it becomes a little more complicated, right? You have uh two flight nurses, you have a base mechanic, you have uh an organization that has expectations, and then of course you have the patients, right? And the patients are a part of the equation, and we are human. And um there there were uh many stories of that either consciously or subconsciously affecting the pilot. Um we I had the excellent fortune to work for an organization that recognized that and built processes around protecting the pilot from understanding um, you know, before a decision was made on a flight request, whether or not it was accepted or not, uh, some of those details.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Okay. And so if we go through uh the every stage of a helicopter pilot, of starting off with paying for yourself to building your hours to tourism, to building your hours on EMS, you also have some public safety law enforcement um aspect with your career, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

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SPEAKER_03 16:17

Yeah, yeah. Around 2006, um there was a uh I was waiting to do a check ride, actually, and uh the examiner was late, and a helicopter landed next to me, and I didn't recognize the pilot. And I, you know, it's a pretty small community, so I thought I'd go over and introduce myself. And he ended up being the main pilot for um Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. And I said, Hey, are you looking for a backup? And he said, Yeah, but I can't find anyone with EC 120 time. Well, I had EC 120 time from Tempsco. Uh, and I I'd worked hard to get right at my 50 hours. I think I had 50.4, because I knew that was the magic number. And uh yeah, the rest, as they say, is history, flew for Santa Clara County for 20-ish years. So as a part-time type thing? Yeah, part-time. Um, but you know, uh the full-time pilot would would uh you know had had took vacations and you know had to you know had a brief leave for various reasons, and so I would take over the full-time duties.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

But so how many hours do you have now total? Uh rounding.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yes, call it 7,500. Oh, that's a good amount. Yeah. And it's so funny. Oh, I was gonna say relative, right? It's so funny, because the airplane folks, that's not very much because they build so much, they have really much bigger gas tanks than the helicopter. They also have the beds in the back, too. They have the beds in the back, right. Uh then the military folks, you know, they don't get to fly that much. And so that number is really high for them. So yeah. So then how did you get involved with PG and E? Yeah, great question.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So um I was working, um And just for our international folks, Pacific Gas and Electric.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Pacific Gas and Electric, thank you so much, Ronnie. You're the best. Uh yeah. So we're a utility in California. I think we're the largest utility on the West Coast. And in order to patrol that infrastructure, they need an aviation component to their utility. And uh I had a friend of mine reach out and said, you know, um, the safety side of the house could use a little bit of leaving. And uh I applied and was accepted, and it's been it's been an amazing journey ever since.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So let's talk about who Pacific Gas Electric is, as you're saying. It's a very, very large utility company powering some of the biggest cities in the world. Um, and and a lot of people rely on on PG ⁇ E to deliver electricity and and so forth every day. Um, can you talk about some of the scale and scope and size of what your operations actually look like?

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yeah, it's impressive. Um I'm still learning. Um, but the the very short version, uh well, actually, let me give you the answer first. There's a fantastic book called California Burning that our CEO Patty Poppy has wholeheartedly endorsed. It is a unvarnished look at us as an organization. And I appreciate the unvarnished, right? Because that's how you grow, that's how you get better. Uh and the first, I don't know, third of that book really talks about the history of us. So started in 1853 in San Francisco as the San Francisco Gas Company. Uh so that's why it's P G and E. But if you look at the scale of our operations, it should probably be P E and G since the electric side is is it doesn't roll off the tongue as well. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point. Um, so yeah, the San Francisco Gas Company uh was very successful, early adopters of a lot of that technology, and then through acquisition, they got into uh the Sierras and uh had some uh good fortune to pick a lot of the watersheds for the hydro. Uh we have a tremendous history with hydroelectric operations uh in California. We have one of our probably the most famous area we have is called Helms. And Helms has two reservoirs, an upper and a lower. So during the day, when uh electricity is needed, we run water from the upper to the lower through a turbine, which generates electricity. And then in the evening, when the power demand is low, we actually turn that generator into a pump and we pump that water back up to the upper reservoir. And then, of course, we have all the electric infrastructure transmission and distribution from say Bakersfield to the Oregon border, uh, and then California both sides, east and west. Um we have a nuclear power plant, uh Diablo Canyon. Um I believe it's the only one in California operating that's been a fantastic, uh fantastic piece of our infrastructure. Uh it was uh looking to be decommissioned sort of right around COVID, and fortunately there were some people that were very, very wise with longer vision to realize that we can't really operate California without that kind of power yet. Um, you know, always looking at renewable, always looking at sustainable, but uh nuclear is really clean energy, really clean energy.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Yeah, and I have to tell you, the you want to talk safety. Um it's fantastic to see the NURC or the you know and the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, adopt a lot of the safety principles that are in aviation. Like you can see the through lines, right? And this goes back to, you know, Admiral Rickover who put the first nuclear reactor in in a submarine. A lot of people thought he was nuts for doing that, but that became the Nautilus and we're off to the races there. Sorry, I put a little bit of another plug for the Navy in there.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

About to say, give given your uh your Navy love in there, I get it.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Um so can you talk about how PGE's aviation operations supports that? Like you know I I've seen a couple of articles recently about power washing of lines, but obviously the California fires have been absolutely devastating, especially in the last decade and so what all do you do? What aircraft do you operate? Who operates? Talk about how the aviation operations come into play for PG ⁇ E.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

The uh we have an amazing CEO Patty Poppy. Um she is just fantastic and she has set as a as you know a foundational standard that wildfires will stop. And it's really fantastic that she didn't say you know caused by us. She she said wildfires in California will stop. So it's a it's an effort within our organization but also supporting other efforts outside uh which is where our our bluehawks come in and I'm sure we'll get to that but so in order to help prevent uh ignition points we have two systems one is called PSPS which is uh public safety power shutoff so pgene will look at weather they have a the dedicated weather team that's all they do they're they're meteorologists employed by PGE and they operate in an area called uh the Hawk which is like a hazardous awareness weather center so uh warning center so they're looking and they're like hey on Tuesday we've got dry ground and we've got 60 miles wind forecast we're gonna turn off this section of the line and this section of the line that's PSPS so they're preventatively doing that. So that's great. Uh the issue is then before you re-energize that line you gotta patrol it because that wind might have knocked a tree over it might have knocked a pole down I mean you don't know so it's that patrol piece that comes in where we really want to get our customers back up obviously as fast as possible. But we we don't want to do that blind. And so a fantastic vehicle for that is a helicopter. We have airplanes and drones as well but the helicopter is a is a is a very efficient way to patrol that line before we re-energize. The sort of cousin to PSPS is something called ESPS enhanced safety power shutoff and basically when we activate ESPS on a line we are turning the sensitivity all the way up and if there's so much as a you know microvolt drop from let's say a tree branch it disconnects that line so power doesn't keep pumping through a line that's has a ground.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Another fantastic system but again if we activate uh you know ESPS and it trips we have to patrol uh before we re-energize that and again that's where the helicopters come in so obviously for for as big of an area of California as PGE is covering you need an army of helicopters you need a small army of operators I guess how many rough guess how many total helicopters um not only within your organization but your contractors are supporting PG ⁇ E thank you to our sponsor Robinson Helicopter Company the choice for unrivaled safety and reliability so you can accomplish any mission with confidence for more than half a century Robinson has been at the forefront of the helicopter industry from the R22 to the R66 turbine Robinson makes helicopters accessible so more people can accomplish more missions.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Climb higher for additional information visit www.robinsonheli.com yeah so it's a blended model so we have owned assets and contractor assets so we have two Sesta caravans and we contract uh another fixed wing operator to help with that we have an internal drone team and we have four contractors that support our internal drone team and then in terms of the helicopters we have uh five of the blue hawks uh the those are UH sixties yeah yeah but they're blue because they're painted blue like PGE yeah right uh and then the contractors we've got uh nine and um the contractors are really really seen almost like family uh by PGE which is which is unique right I mean I came from an industry defined by the regulator looking at things as in terms of certificate right so when you have two companies two certificates they're separate uh and so it was interesting for me to come here and realize oh we can we can influence for the positive uh these contractors to help them with safety and help support their efforts to mature uh so to answer your question let's call it uh let's see on property today we had I think 36 helicopters uh but I've seen up to 90 on our property so uh between that fixed wing drones we're talking 100 plus sometimes aviation assets in in in the I don't want to say worst case scenarios right when those big fires are happening when lots of things everybody's on call supporting I mean it's a pretty busy time I guess yeah and even during normal operations I mean we can hit up to 200 aircraft a day on property between the drawn teams significant drawn teams so with that as the role of the safety manager the safety management system program manager there you go what does your day look like into that not only for your own aircraft but also with with the contractors yeah it's it's uh it's it's dynamic uh let's call it that uh so we have an amazing helicopter manager uh I have to call him out Pete Anderson fantastic gentleman uh he is supported he's been on various podcasts before so if you haven't heard from him feel free to listen absolutely highly recommend that amazing person um and his support uh from the top our director of aviation services Chris Courtney I mean those two act uh in concert it's pretty impressive to see they support each other daily uh and Pete and Chris's vision of the relationship being the key to safe operations I mean sign me up this is this is a fun job because of those two uh if you don't have that leadership commitment it's it's still a fun job but I you know it would be a much more difficult push I have all the support I can ever ask for in a phone call so um the opportunity to spend time with these helicopter operators uh and really be looked at as a partner and not as you know an outsider or you know something akin to a regulator or a client or something cold or clinical like that it's it's much more seen as um as a part of the family.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

So obviously um it's been recognized having an SMS system is a way to enhance your safety culture and your operations as a whole VAI has several different programs helping to launch SMS programs for operators and so forth. I'm guessing you have some very big operators uh I'm wearing my PJ hat today you have small operators medium sized operators what is what is one of the core aspects of SMS for these operators as it relates to you and what you're doing from PG and E's perspective yeah so I really like that question.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

So you can talk about the bullseye all you want in terms of hey airlines do this thing it's called part five here's the elements here's the you know great but when it what does that actually look like for a contractor who's got 13 total headcount and an operator that's got you know a thousand plus total headcount it's possible right SMS is scalable but to actually see what that looks like it takes a little bit of engagement quite a bit of engagement you know to help support that we have found a tremendous amount of success in well let's back up a little bit do you think everyone knows what part five SMS is none of us do Mike because uh our titles aren't Safety Management System Program Manager. So how about you start with some of the building blocks of what is core safety looking like yeah so I'm I'm I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel I'm gonna cheat off someone else's homework right and so the 121 world you know the airlines have really spent a lot of time making mistakes and improving on their safety systems. I mean I grew up I remember airplane crashes were not that that uncommon on the nightly news I mean we're just kind of commercial aircraft yep commercial aircraft yeah you're like you know it's before the internet right and I just never thought that we would ever get to the point where we would have a system that was so effective that the US airline fatality rate would ever go to zero. But in 2009 it went to zero and it was very very low. It was at zero until the DCA incident January uh last year um so whatever they're doing it's working it's very very effective okay so FA made the law in 2015 the FAA applied it to themselves they said okay we need an internal SMS uh and they created a rule called part five it's a fairly short rule it's a very broad language and has very little how to do it uh they came up with a fantastic advisory circular AC 92 Delta which is that's got all the meat and potatoes on it right that takes part five breaks it apart and then has underneath each section a s uh a discussion an example it really helps flesh that out that being said it's still hard to go from zero to airline level safety and so uh what Pete and Chris have recognized as being effective is an intermediate step through an international standard called ISBAO so International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO which was started in I think 1947 at the Chicago convention uh they're the 54 countries signed that agreement um you know the FAA obviously predates 1950 or excuse me 1947 uh but not by much and the FAA and ICAO work together and the regulations are fairly similar. IsBAO which is the International Standard of Business Aviation Operation is recognized by ICAO um if you needed more acronyms in your life this is the episode Aviation is not for you yeah yeah right so IsBEO is recognized by IKAO and Isbeo has a safety management system very close to part five and they broke it into three stages or levels. So you get your Isbeo level one which is you write everything out in the manuals and then after a year you uh apply for IsBEO level two and you get audited and that's kind of like doing the things that you said you did in the manual. And then level three is okay you've got the manual you're doing everything in the manual and then are you taking that data are you feeding it back into the SMS to improve it? And after level three, man, you're really close to being compliant with part five.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

And the core aspect or responsibility of having a SMS system is to do what? Reduce risk and prevent injuries and accidents. By looking at situations evaluating it improving your processes to prevent those risks from coming up the next time or knowing how to mitigate those risks. Exactly exactly so with you dealing with contractors as small um versus as big how how is your role as an SMS program manager for you know again one of the largest aviation operations in the world how how how does that fit in? How do you how does your role fit into those those different contractors and how do you build trust with them?

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Whoa okay so those are two really big questions but they're related so uh when I started there were 24 helicopter contractors. I think it's it was recognized that really what we want to do is when we put out the Isbeo standards for the first time um as you can imagine it was a gap analysis right because you they weren't even close to level one. And so you know the data was coming back like oh there's 87 findings which sounds bad right but a lot of these operators had never seen any SMS like this before and so you know there were varied reactions and the the contractors that were like wow this this looks tough but we see the value in this you know those are the ones where you know through through iterations right they're still here like could PGE just put this in the contract that you must do this sure but again Chris and Pete they were wise enough to realize if they did that there would be a chance that someone might do it just to check the box versus telegraphing them and showing them that this is a valuable system that will reduce your accident rate and stop harm from people and and and machinery and then actually do it. Like build it in a way where it's a part of your culture.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

So then how do you get them to trust as part of sharing through these audits and various other things of we make mistakes right it it's a known fact we're all human we all make mistakes how how do how how do you see that from good operators versus one still learning on how to improve their SMS? How do you build that trust?

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Such a great question and it's it's uh what does Pete say uh it's simple but it's not easy and and I think your question is a real a a really good uh sort of example of that so when we look at just culture it's got a lot of aspects to it but it could be broken down quickly into three main buckets of behavior right you have human error and then you have at-risk behavior and then you have reckless and so looking at them one at a time human error there's a lot of studies that show you can never eliminate human error you will always have human error so I think operators need to sort of embrace that and then build systems that allow AMTs and pilots and dispatchers and fuel truck drivers and all of their personnel to fail safely when they do make a mistake right and that's not always easy. It's simple but it's not easy. The at-risk behaviors that's something you know we do see but we have to always assume noble intent because nobody wakes up I think that's a famous expression now right nobody wakes up thinking that they want to go be contributing factor to an accident or an incident right so even the at-risk behaviors there's some grace there. And then the last which is very rare which is the reckless um but there is a there's a separation between the at-risk and the reckless and that line is where justice comes in and so you have to have a system that has justice.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

So you you mentioned just culture and some of these core tenets of of evaluating different things and and how those things went wrong right but what does just culture actually mean in a real world operational environment can you you know break down to the you know feel free to plagiarize again what is just culture if you're passionate about rotorcraft maintenance then be sure to check out vertical's new Instagram channel at vertical.mro turn all things related to helicopter maintenance repair and overhaul the latest podcast episodes to conference updates and even epic photography vertical MRO is dedicated to supporting advancing rotorcraft maintenance the backbone of our industry yeah it's a great question so I'm gonna lean on Mr actually Mr Doctor reason right um the Swiss cheese guy uh he kind of defined the cultures and broke it down into like the different aspects so the informed culture the flexible culture reporting culture learning culture and the just culture they all make what he called the safety culture those other four I mentioned are pretty straightforward but it's the just culture that's pretty hard to pull off and it's easy to do wrong and that's kind of why I kind of focus in on that just culture piece.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

So when you have you know an AMT lifting a transmission let's say out of an aircraft and there's an incident I mean that's gonna raise people's attention right it's an expensive day in the office. It can be but it's really worthwhile if you have this framework and you know the science behind it. Take a deep breath and then figure out and look at the systems right look at the why not the who because if you only look at the who it's gonna happen again because that person probably made some honest mistakes and there was it's very very rare to find something reckless.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

So what is the intersection then between an SMS and a just culture?

SPEAKER_03 41:45

The SMS at its core I think most people are familiar with the four components it's safety policy risk assessment safety assurance and safety promotion so policy is going to be your manuals and stuff like that. Risk assessment that's going to be your design of your system safety assurance those are your audits that's the performance of the system and then safety promotion is pretty self-explanatory. All of those components rest on a foundation of culture if your culture is bad it doesn't matter what your manual says and it doesn't matter what your safety department is pulling up in terms of analyzing your your systems because the people that function within those systems the culture is pervasive. It's everywhere and the good news is if you have a good culture it can it can be there to kind of we talked about failing safely it can be there in those moments where the policy isn't clear right but the person the AMT stopped and raised their hand and and maybe made a quick call to the supervisor and prevented an incident because of that culture. That person felt empowered to do so even though the policy failed or the design failed or the process failed.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

So you keep mentioning culture and especially with with just culture and and good cultures and so forth if if everybody could just copy another company's culture we would all be you know unicorns and rainbows everywhere, right? But you're dealing with as you're saying nine different contractors on on the helicopter side and so forth. Every single one of those operators has its own culture what are some of those types of culture similarities do you see across them or across the industry and and so forth that make a good culture? Leadership I think has to be one, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:49

It is it it it's right at the top. Because remember how I said the culture is a foundation to those four aspects that's there's two parts to the foundation The second part of the foundation after the culture is top-level commitment. So you can imagine if you walked into a helicopter operator and um, you know, you had your PGE shirt on, right? And you start talking to an AMT and a hangar, and you know, they mention, yeah, I haven't seen our director of maintenance in four weeks. Are they on vacation? No, just they're never around, they've got another job. You know, that you can see how there could be alarm bells, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Even though you haven't even found anything, there's no issues, you haven't even really started the audit, right? If you heard that, you'd be like, huh. Okay. So again, assume noble intent, let's dig some more, but it's it's that kind of it's the presence that you see. Um, it's the model that we have kind of within PGE that we use as a mirror or as a benchmark uh externally to the contractors.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

So going into that just culture, where do you see organizations most commonly get it wrong? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:11

Well, so you this line of justice It's tough. As soon as you draw that line, you've got two sides. And so when there are events, they belong on one side or the other, because you just drew a line. Okay. Cool. So is it more important Ryan? Let me ask you a question. Do you think it's more important to have a clear line for that line of justice? Or do you think it's more important who sets it?

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Well, I wish I could give the answer that there's no real clear line. It's a gray line, right? It it's always um if we see everything as as black and white, then it's black and white in the aspect of who is the colorblind person. And and what I mean by that is too often in society, helicopters are not, right? We're always looking for the axe to fall and someone to blame, right? And unfortunately, we we take a look at we were talking about commercial operations, obviously, the the incident that just happened um on the runway with Air Canada, right? A mistake. And an absolutely a mistake that just uh it seemed to be very unnecessary, but people are overworked, they have too many different things going on. You know, is it the mistake of the person who said, I made a mistake to a pilot, and the pilot other pilot said you're doing the best that you could, right? Is is the culture around that from the SMS uh of of what caused that mistake to happen, right? We all want to blame somebody, but at the end of the day, there it's it's it's black and white. It's not black and white. It's it's there's a lot of gray around this. And and working through what that just culture system is and SMS, I mean, it's going to cause a lot of reflection, you know, potentially all the way up to the politicians of making sure people are getting funded and hired and and not working however many hours over time.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

So thank you for tuning in to part one of this conversation. Be sure to catch part two. It's packed with more insights you won't want to miss. Stand by for a message after a word from our sponsors.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

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SPEAKER_00 48:25

If you're passionate about rotorcraft maintenance, then be sure to check out Vertical's new Instagram channel at vertical.mro. Turn all things related to helicopter maintenance, return overhaul. The latest podcast episodes to conference updates and even epic photography. Vertical MRO is dedicated to supporting advancing rotorcraft maintenance. The backbone of our industry.