VAI Member Spotlight: Aviation Safety Compliance, Massachusetts, USA New company provides SMS assistance for helicopter operators large and small. By Jen Boyer With the FAA deadline quickly approaching for many commercial helicopter operators to have safety management system (SMS) programs in place, more options are available than ever to support the process of creating, strengthening, and ensuring the healthy operation of an SMS. Aviation consulting firm Aviation Safety Compliance (ASC), founded by aviation safety professionals Jim Hosey and John Cox in 2023, is one of the newest resources in the vertical aviation industry. Its owners, however, are anything but new to aviation safety. Hosey is a 30-year veteran of military flight operations, with additional corporate flying and aviation safety management experience. Cox is a 35-year aviation veteran with experience as a commercial, corporate, and test pilot as well as a safety instructor and aviation safety manager. Both have run their own aviation safety consulting and auditing firms for years and worked in similar circles. With the upcoming FAA SMS mandate, they saw an opportunity to join forces. SMS Specialists “After decades of working in aviation safety, independently and cooperatively, Jim and I realized that there was a soon-to-be groundswell of need for safety management system experts that could help large, medium-sized, and even very small organizations meet the FAA SMS mandate,” Cox says. “There really wasn’t anyone out there that could do that for all sizes of companies. So, we pooled our forces together and created Aviation Safety Compliance with an eye toward supporting SMS development, only to find that the demand for many other services exceeded the need we initially believed was out there. With ASC, we can help in all those areas.” Cox emphasizes that ASC serves operators of all sizes—from single-aircraft Part 91 operators to large Part 135 charter companies. Suite of Safety Services In addition to SMS assistance, ASC offers a suite of safety services, including safety and technical audits, gap analyses, airport surveys, emergency response planning, maintenance audits, and uncrewed aircraft system/drone operations integration. The company takes a holistic approach, examining all aspects of operations to identify areas for improvement and develop programs around those improvements. ASC can also scale its solutions to match the size and complexity of the operator. Jen Boyer is a journalist and marketing communicator specializing in aviation. She holds commercial, instrument, flight instructor, and instrument instructor ratings in helicopters and a private rating in airplanes.
