Flight Test Safety Committee

The Flight Test Safety Committee (FTSC) was formed jointly in November 1994 by members of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP), the Society of Flight Test Engineers (SFTE) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). These and numerous additional organizations presently comprise the FTSC. The purpose of the FTSC is to initiate and sustain a flight test related safety organization intended to promote flight safety, reduce the risk of mishap, promote risk reduction management and continually improve the profession's communication and coordination.
About FTSC

Dave Houle Flight Test Accident Archive

Dave Houle collected historical documentation from many notable aircraft mishaps.  The documentation in this archive ranges from 1929-2011.  Some are anecdotal articles, and others are full accident investigation reports.  We have scanned these into searchable pdf files, available for download.  There is also a rudimentary index of the contents of each file with a brief description of each article.

  1. Review the index to find the incident of interest.
  2. Locate the FT Accident file number (1-8) and page number next in the row of the selected incident to identify which volume contains the summary.
  3. Select the hyperlink of the specified volume, and go to the page number of interest for further details.

In the spirit of sharing lessons learned, if you have similar documentation that you feel will help other test crews, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Summary of Accidents Flight Test Accident Index
   
Flight Test Accidents Part 1 Flight Test Accidents Part 2
Flight Test Accidents Part 3 Flight Test Accidents Part 4
Flight Test Accidents Part 5 Flight Test Accidents Part 6
Flight Test Accidents Part 7 Flight Test Accidents Part 8

Flight Test Safety Fact 20-08

Welcome back.  I needed the break and thank you all for your patience as FTSF took a month off in July.  The pace of life is starting to pick back up and accelerate as we head down hill on the back half of 2020.  

This month's feature weaves together three separate threads that include SETP's Dan "Animal" Javorsek, NASA's Advanced Air Mobility expert Starr Ginn, and a string of airplane crashes in the USAF.  You'll have to scrape off more than the topsoil to find the theme at the root of this column.  If you are the curious type or you are on that last summer vacation, it includes links to other stories and references you can really dig into for more information.  

Also reported this month...The Flight Test Safety Committee Board of Directors has big news--it says goodbye to one member and welcome to another.  

After reading this month's issue, we hope you remember to check out everything the flighttestsafety.org website has to offer, including news about the Flight Test Safety Database--it will be down for extended maintenance.

This month I am asking for specific feedback about the frequency of this newsletter.  Is once a month the right pace, or should we go to every other month? Send feedback about this question or anything that you uncover.


Sincerely,
Mark Jones Jr.

Editor

PS For added security and convenience you can always download the pdf here.

2020 MIT STAMP Workshop

Based on the interest of the Virtual Flight Test Safety Workshop this past May, the FTSC would like to bring awareness to the upcoming MIT STAMP Workshop.

CLICK HERE for more info and to Register for this free MIT Event!

Download the Full Detailed Schedule Here

The 2020 Virtual STAMP Workshop will be scheduled with a few sessions a day over the course of three weeks to avoid fatigue from all-day remote video sessions and to maximize the number of people around the world who can participate. Sessions will run from July 20, 2020 to Aug 7, 2020.

The first week will provide short tutorials to introduce STAMP, STPA, CAST, and related techniques. These tutorials are different than our STAMP/STPA/CAST training classes; the tutorials are only meant to introduce core concepts to help you follow the presentations over the next two weeks. The following two weeks involve presentations, panels, and poster sessions from organizations around the world who want to share their experiences with these techniques.