2011 Conference Summary

The 32nd National Aerospace FOD Prevention Conference was held on August 16-18th, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport, was voted a big success! Over 425 representatives from across the industry (national & international) participated in a variety of learning opportunities that stemmed from keynote and spotlight speakers in general session, to interactive open forum discussions and workshops. Over 25 Exhibitors displayed the latest products and services available to prevent FOD and promote flight safety. This year’s conference tours included “DFW International Airport, American Airlines “C.R. Smith Museum, FlightSafety, and NAS Joint Reserve Base, Ft. Worth, all helped reinforced this year’s theme “FOD Prevention, A Key Component to Operational Excellence”. This theme highlighted significant proactive efforts companies are making to ensure flight safety, quality and mission success.  Participants experienced workshops focusing on an assortment of topics that set the stage for three days of interactive learning and networking activities. We had a great motivational speaker, “Jan Collmer, Pilot/Air Show Acrobatics” and his presentation “From a Pilots Perspective” helped engage the audiences by demonstrating how important preventing FOD is to pilots and being accountable at work to ensure daily safe operations are carried out. Edwin E. Herrick’s from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on behalf of the FAA, presented updated information on the advisory circular “Airport FOD Management” program and requirements.  We had riveting keynote presentations on “Risk Mitigation & FOD Prevention, FOD Reduction Efforts and Safety Management System (An Airport and Airline Joint Effort), “Operations of a Continuous FOD Detection System at a Major Airport” and “Wildlife FOD” An Operational Impact to Airlines and Airports.  The conference ended with a strong message from the NAFPI president (Richard Bell) challenging everyone to take all the information they learned the past 3 days and apply it to their day-to-day operations, achieving maximum benefit from attending this year’s conference.

 “Special thanks to all participants, presenters and exhibitors”