Safety Chief sees progress in Air Force Safety

  • Published
  • By Stefan Bocchino
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Kirtland Air Force Base, NM --  The outgoing Air Force Chief of Safety, Maj. Gen. Frederick Roggero, said he has seen great progress in safety issues in the past few years Air Force-wide.

In a change-of-command ceremony scheduled for Sept. 1, General Roggero will turn the reins of Air Force Safety over to Maj. Gen. Gregory Feest. In another ceremony scheduled for Sept. 3 at Bolling AFB in Washington, D.C., General Roggero will retire after nearly 34 years of active service.

In mid-August, General Roggero reflected on his time as chief of Air Force safety.

He said there were four main focus areas given to him by the Air Force Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Air Force. They were to strengthen the nuclear surety policy; to ensure that the aviation safety programs were top notch; to improve the prevention of motor vehicle accidents and the risk-management culture; and to assist the surgeon general in suicide prevention.

Nuclear surety is a priority for the Air Force and will continue to be in the future.

"We had to step out and look at the policy the Air Force had on security and reliability of nuclear weapons," said General Roggero. "We have to make sure our guidance is doing what it is supposed to do."

The nuclear surety policies have been completely rewritten and are being coordinated for approval, said Gen. Roggero. The first nuclear surety council in 20 years came together to discuss issues and work on solutions in strengthening the policy.

We have an aviation safety program that is second to none said Gen. Roggero. It includes the premier mishap-prevention program and an investigation program for our remotely piloted aircraft.

"Aviation safety I'm extremely please with," said Gen. Roggero. "Fiscal year 2009 was the safest year ever in Air Force history as far as aviation goes."

According to Air Force statistics, the class A mishap rate for the year was 0.8, something that had never before been achieved by the Air Force. The fatality rate was also down, meeting the Secretary of Defense's goal of a 75 percent reduction from 2002.

The Air Force Safety Center also stood up a remotely piloted aircraft department to combat RPA mishaps. They went back and culled data for lessons learned, to improve training and technology to bring down mishap rates for RPAs.

"Regarding ground safety we wanted to improve our abilities in preventing private motor vehicle mishaps," said Gen. Roggero. "We looked at the statistics for the last 20 years and saw that we averaged losing eight Airmen every year in on-duty mishaps, but 66 every year in off-duty mishaps."

The focus was clear, according to Gen. Roggero. We had to enhance our risk-management culture. Operationally the Air Force was doing well. During leisure time, our risk management needed work. We have made some terrific advancement in how we get the word out.

"Between this year and last, we have reduced private motor vehicle accidents by about 40 percent," said Gen. Roggero. "Just by getting the message out and engaging leadership and telling everyone about the problem we have. Telling people that we lose on average 66 people every year to off-duty mishaps is a huge surprise to everyone. The light comes on and they recognize this as a serious issue."
He said many tools are available to help. The Air Force has a cultural assessment survey tool that can help commanders gauge the safety culture within their units. This survey provides the commander with feedback on how to improve the safety culture within the unit.

The Safety Center has also had focus groups of target ages come together to discuss how best to get the message out to Airmen, said Gen. Roggero. "We are using new avenues, such as social media, video messages, Airman-to-Airman program, and family member messages to get the message out there. It is important to get the safety culture to take hold off-duty, because that's where most of the fatalities are."

The Air Force Safety Center is also assisting the surgeon general with suicide prevention, said Gen. Roggero. Safety can help by bringing in the safety culture and how suicide events are investigated. There is an event review board that will investigate suicides and then the board will brief the base community action and information board. Some suicides will be briefed at the headquarters level. That way if there are Air Force wide implications, they can be shared among everybody.

"What has impressed me most are the very hardworking and professional folks that we have out there dealing with safety," said Gen. Roggero. "It's not just the 180 or so here at the Safety Center and in the Pentagon. There are more than 1,700 safety professionals across the Air Force who are looking to save Airmen's lives and preserve combat capabilities."

It's also important for commanders to be heavily involved in the safety of their Airmen, said Gen. Roggero. Safety is about leadership and communication. That is something that has to start with the commander and not just the safety office.

"The assignment as Chief of Safety has been extremely rewarding," said Gen. Roggero. "This is one of the great jobs in the Air Force, where you can look out and see that you've made a difference. What I've learned is that Air Force safety is no accident. It takes a lot of hard work to make sure that sentence is right."