When I joined RASG-PA in 2010, the region was experiencing an average of 6 to 10 fatal accidents a year, that added up to hundreds of fatalities every year. This was already an important reduction from previous decades, and a really high standard compared to other industries, but we knew we could do better, and that it was not enough.
With RASG-PA (States, Airlines, Manufacturers, Professional Organizations, Airports, and partners) we set a clear objective of reducing the risk of a fatality by 50% from 2010 to 2020. To accomplish this we created a clear implementation roadmap to improve our safety data collection (protect our safety information sources, change the safety culture, enable safety data sharing, etc) and to use that information to identify risks, develop safety enhancements and implement and monitor their effectiveness.
This simple but effective plan, where we focused our resources on the top contributors to our accidents, WORKED! by the end of the decade we had actually achieved an 87.5% reduction! way over the 50% we hoped to achieve.
We actually had the first 0 fatalities in the LATAM-CAR region in 2014, and repeated it on 2017 and 2019. And now this became then new standard: 0 fatalities
Congratulations to all the amazing people who work in the aviation industry in the Pan-American region that make this possible. Keep it up, and remember that the risks we identified and worked on will always be there! And they will come back if we forget why those safety improvements where put in place, why we do what we do, the way we do it! All the training, procedures, policies, resources and programs that are there keep us safe, be aware of cost cutting practices and "new ways" of doing things that diminish your safety standards.
In 2023, more than 12,500,000 commercial flights were registered in Pan America, and we did not have any fatalities. Such an important achievement in an industry as complex as aviation does not come by chance, nor is it the result of luck. Rather, it is the product of teamwork, collaboration, data sharing, and informed decision making. At RASG-PA we are proud to dedicate our work to aviation safety, and to bring together key stakeholders to contribute and help improve the safety of the skies in our region and the world.
