Bruce Webb of Airbus challenged operators to move beyond delivering training toward real learning that turns compliance into competence in his Day 1 presentation “Learning or Training?”
Successful 2026 VAI Air Tour Safety Conference Concludes in California
Candid information sharing, firsthand accounts make singular impression.
Over two days at the 2026 VAI Air Tour Safety Conference, air tour operators, regulators, and other industry experts came together for candid, practical conversations about where the sector stands on safety and where it needs to go next. The event, which took place Oct. 6–7 in Garden Grove, California, exhibited a true spirit of open information sharing among attendees in an effort to devise solutions to today’s most critical safety challenges.
Invaluable Information Sharing, Learning
Matthew West, with Hawk AeroSafety, opened the conference with his keynote, “Willful Blindness and Safety Drift,” giving attendees a framework for spotting drift in daily operations that carried through the rest of the program. Bruce Webb of Airbus followed with “Learning or Training?” challenging operators to move beyond delivering training toward real learning that turns compliance into competence.
The Tour Talk series brought operator voices to the stage: VAI Board member Aaron Singer of Seaplane Aero Adventures, Tyler Carver of Papillon, and Nicole Battjes of Rainbow Helicopters shared personal stories that set the tone for safety information sharing and enabled other participants to open up and do the same throughout the two-day event.
Indeed, the genuine information sharing was “the most powerful [aspect] of all,” said VAI President and CEO François Lassale in his closing remarks about the conference, “because people take away so many lessons from it.”
Among the most powerful moments of the conference was “Wire Strike Risk Doesn’t Discriminate by Mission,” led by Torbjorn “TC” Corell of Vertical Flight Solutions with Gordy Cox of Firehawk Helicopters and Lassale, whose firsthand accounts put listeners in the cockpit at the moment of a wire strike.
SMS on the Brain
With the May 2027 Part 5 safety management system (SMS) declaration deadline approaching, the “Are You Ready to Declare SMS Compliance?” panel was one of the highlights of Day 1. Moderated by Chris Young of the Tour Operators Program of Safety (TOPS), it brought together FAA Safety Management Branch Manager Suzette Rash with operators Joel Kain of TEMSCO Helicopters, Coastal, and NorthStar Helicopters and Eric Hamp of Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.
The session, which featured a “what you can expect” format, gave attendees the rare chance to put their questions directly to the FAA as well as a handful of industry operators with varying degrees of experience.
Industry “Flight Plan” and Next Steps
Day 2 of the event included the “Commercial Air Tour (CAT) ARC Report and Next Steps for Industry” panel, moderated by VAI Director of Regulatory Affairs Amber Harrison. There, Singer and FAA Aviation Safety Inspector Mike Mosher explained what the CAT Aviation Rulemaking Committee’s recommendations mean for Part 135 operations and how operators can take part in the upcoming review and comment process.
“Before the Blades Turn: Evaluating Your Operating Environment,” presented by Kathryn Wright, president of Heliplanners, delivered a punch list for auditing heliports and austere sites and managing downwash and outwash. That set up the “Air Tour Industry Flight Plan” exercise, in which four facilitator-led groups of participants worked through the sector’s toughest challenges by theme, from SMS buy-in to fatigue to workforce development, and reported their findings to the full audience.
The groups came up with a multitude of actionable items under each theme, including creating outreach and mentorship programs for operators with inexperienced pilots under “workforce development”; evaluating workload daily and for longevity under “fatigue”; and fostering training, exposure, and mentorship to build SMS acceptance under “SMS buy-in.”
VAI thanks the speakers, panelists, facilitators, FAA partners, and attendees who made this year’s Air Tour Safety Conference such a success, leaving the audience inspired, informed, and equipped with new ideas to strengthen safety and performance throughout their operations.
