Safety helps prevent mishaps to support all elements of Wolf Pack mission

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Amanda Savannah
  • 8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  When most Airmen are asked how they support the Wolf Pack Mission of Defend the Base, Accept Follow-On Forces, and Take the Fight North, they usually focus on one of the elements.

"Where don't we support the mission?" is the response from the 8th Fighter Wing safety office.

The wing safety office helps prevent mishaps from happening, thus protecting all Wolf Pack assets -human and non-human - which are needed to perform all three facets of the wing's mission, said wing safety members. Safety protects service members, preserves its combat capabilities and keeps the mission going.

To do this, the wing safety office is separated into four sections, led by the chief of safety. They are weapons safety, aerospace medicine safety, flight safety and ground safety.

Master Sgt. Chad Carlson works weapons safety.

"For any explosives on base and anybody who handles or deals with them, we have to make sure that they're doing it right," he said. "Weapons safety evaluates everyone who has a need to handle or store these explosives."

Although primarily an aerospace physiologist assigned to the 8th Medical Operations Squadron, Capt. Christopher Reichlen works aerospace medicine safety as the liaison between aerospace medicine and wing safety.

"I am a 'human factors' consultant for mishap investigations," Captain Reichlen said. "I work with the other three sections (in safety) in any way that I can, whether it be through mishap investigation or helping build prevention programs to educate the Wolf Pack on human factors."

Flight safety is responsible for wing aircraft as they are in flight and on the taxiways.

"Flight safety is about creating corporate knowledge without incurring the costs associated with a mishap, whether it's lives or aircraft," said Capt. Bryan McGuire, 80th Fighter Squadron and flight safety officer. "We investigate mishaps with the overall goal that the flying community will learn from and not repeat those mistakes."

Ground safety is everything else.

"If it doesn't go 'boom,' or it didn't taxi to take off, then it's ground safety," Sergeant Hobart said.

Ground safety has three "hats," he said.

"We do inspections of every facility, we do mishap investigations and we teach classes," said Sergeant Hobart.

Although wing safety is separated into each of these sections, they often work together depending on the mishap.

"We have clear lines, but we often cross those lines to help each other out," said Sergeant Carlson.

The wing safety office relies on the Wolf Pack to help them accomplish their mission. They ask service members to avoid unnecessary risks, not get complacent and to report any mishaps up their chain of command.

"It's important for people to know though that the mishap reporting process isn't a disciplinary process, it's so our leadership knows what's happening and where to direct our prevention efforts," Captain Reichlen said.

"The information we get is solely to prevent the same thing from happening again," said Sergeant Carlson. "Some people who don't know safety may say we're the 'long arm of the law,' however we're just the opposite of that; we're out there to help people. If I see something wrong, I want to help fix it."

Sergeant Hobart also placed mishap prevention responsibility heavily on supervisors.

"Supervisors need to look out for their Airmen," he said. "Show them how to do things the right way the first time, get that caring mentality in making sure a human being is going home every day with everything they showed up with. Help them practice good personal risk management."

The Air Force safety program just ended the annual "101 Critical Days of Summer" campaign, and the Wolf Pack's numbers were satisfactory overall, Sergeant Hobart said.

"Our added attention to safety prevented the higher-class mishaps from happening, and we did really well on preventing industrial and work-related injuries," he said. "The Wolf Pack is also unique in that we don't have the private motor vehicle issues that other bases have."

But the wing is still fighting the battle of preventing sports-related injuries.

"We know how to play hard here," said Sergeant Hobart.

To improve on these statistics, the Air Force runs year-round safety campaigns focused on these particular issues. Next year's "101 Days" will continue the focus on sports-related injuries, Sergeant Hobart said.

Wing safety also mitigates these statistics by educating the Wolf Pack.

"Part of my job is to get out and provide human performance training to whomever I can," Captain Reichlen said. "I brief the first-term Airman's center, NCO professional course, classes at the health and wellness center, and unit-specific classes on hot topics when units ask me to."

"We also catch Airmen as they in-process and brief every newly-appointed supervisor," said Sergeant Hobart. "Ground safety also briefs FTAC on risk management and applying driving skills, and provides information to unit safety representatives and commanders."

With the cooler weather and holiday season just around the corner, the safety office will soon refocus their mishap prevention efforts.

"With more three-day weekends coming up, we will beef up our education before the breaks, putting together the current hot topics and sending them to the safety reps so everyone can brief their people before the weekend," Sergeant Hobart said. "If we see a spike in a particular area, we also take care of it with additional educational material."

Issues the wing safety often deals with in the winter are slips, trips and falls; vehicle operations; and cold-related injuries.

"We're going to hit slips, trips and falls for the ground safety, so that will be on the forefront, as well as vehicle ops in the snow," Sergeant Hobart said. "Airmen should apply situational awareness to everything and use ACT - assess the situation, consider the options, and take the appropriate action."

People not familiar with cold weather may have a hard time driving, and Wolf Pack members should work with the wing safety office to minimize these issues.

"The ultimate goal is to empower the supervisors to realize the driving issue; we have a constant rotation here and we (safety) don't know if every Airman knows how to drive in the cold," said Sergeant Hobart. "We rely on the supervisors to help notify us when the Wolf Pack needs additional training."

Wing safety will also be focused on cold-related injuries during the winter.

"There are plenty of issues such as hypothermia and frostbite," said Captain Reichlen. "We'll even continue to emphasize hydration because people won't think about it, but it can sneak up on you just as fast as in the summer."

No matter what time of the year, safety should always remain on the forefront of every Airman's mind.

"I always say, 'Know safety, no pain.' If you know and follow safety, you'll have no pain," Sergeant Hobart said.