DAF Safety announces updated guidance for maintenance NDAs

As part of an ongoing effort to address aviation maintenance-related mishaps and provide authorized Air Force maintainers with privileged safety briefings, the Air Force Safety Center announced an update to how Privileged Safety Information training, also known as safety privilege training, and Non-Disclosure Agreements will be completed and collected.

To address an uptick in aviation maintenance related mishaps, Maj. Gen. Sean Choquette, Department of the Air Force chief of safety and AFSEC commander, announced in August the current program used in the aircrew community of providing privileged safety briefings and recurring safety briefings would be expanded to include maintainers.

"In the past, PSI training has been done on an ad hoc basis for maintainers and other career fields when warranted but has never been normalized across a career field, other than aircrew, until now," Choquette said. "This is a focused effort to expand PSI access in order to provide recurring safety privilege training and privileged safety briefings across the maintenance community. Our maintainers have a critical role in flight line mishap prevention, and this is significant improvement in how we share lessons learned."

In order to receive privileged safety briefings, personnel must first receive safety privileged training and sign an NDA. The training helps personnel understand what PSI is and how it works to protect national security and save lives and resources. The NDA is the understanding and agreement to the rules for its use.

The updated guidance is focused on changes to how the PSI training and NDA signature are executed. To achieve maximum participation, units will now be able to complete the process using a phased approach. While training must be accomplished now, training methods will be flexible with a mix of in-person and virtual training options to best accommodate unit missions and ops tempo. Additionally, rather than requiring the PSI training and signing the NDA simultaneously, authorized personnel will need to sign an NDA prior to their first privileged safety briefing, greatly reducing the administrative burden of training and collecting signed NDAs in a short period of time.

Expanding the current program to include maintainers is part of DAF Safety's Strategic Plan.

"One of my goals since becoming Chief of Safety has been to incorporate Risk Management principles into the training provided to Airmen," said Choquette. "The more information we can give to our Airmen, the better prepared they will be to make good, risk-informed decisions and ultimately, prevent mishaps."

The process to access PSI is documented in DAFI 91-204 and has remained consistent for almost two decades. After receiving training on proper use and protection of PSI, maintainers will be able to receive privileged safety briefings. This initiative introduces a recurring requirement for Air Force safety offices to provide maintenance focused mishap presentations to the aviation maintenance force. Annual safety privilege training will be provided to allow continued access to mishap data and ensure proper protection of PSI. Installation safety shops will manage the process and ensure maintenance-related mishaps and trends relevant to the unit's mission or aircraft are shared.

While maintainers are not required to have PSI access, the intent is to have maximum participation to better understand how to protect mission readiness and national security by preventing future mishaps and keeping themselves and other Airmen safe. Without signing an NDA, maintainers will not be allowed access to PSI or privileged safety briefings which impedes Air Force efforts to equip maintainers with information that will help them make better risk decisions.

PSI is U.S. Supreme Court-recognized, and unique to DoD safety investigations. PSI includes mishap factors, findings, causes, and recommendations determined through analysis by safety investigators and statements made under the promise of confidentiality. It is protected from being released outside of safety channels, even within DoD, or from being used for any purpose except DoD mishap prevention. It is a valuable tool in the Safety community and is critical to mishap prevention and combat readiness. It gives Airmen and Guardians confidence in the safety investigation process and recommendations because it protects open discussion and deliberation.

Additionally, when promised confidentiality by a safety investigation, Airmen and Guardians are protected from any adverse personnel action based on their confidential statement to safety investigators. This allows safety investigations to move rapidly toward root cause determination and recommendations to address it. Should PSI be leaked, it could erode trust in this crucial element of the safety process.

Major mishaps are often also the subject of a publicly released Accident Investigation Board report, which is not privileged, and presents all the factual details about a mishap, as well as that AIB's analysis of the cause of the mishap.