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Australian resource companies including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have adopted new standards for flight safety developed by the Australian office of the Flight Safety Foundation.
Under the Basic Aviation Risk (BAR) Standard Program, a single set of standards and associated audits have been developed across the resources industry, which is aimed at increasing safety in resource flying. “A major weakness of the old ‘company-specific’ standards was they tended to be prescriptive and reactive to incidents. The BAR Standard Program, on the other hand, is based on leading aviation industry risk management principals – analysing possible points of failure, and preparing for them,” said FSF global CEO Bill Voss said.
The BAR Standard Program was developed in conjunction with BHP Billiton, Lihir Gold, Minerals and Metals Group (MMG) and Rio Tinto. It has also been endorsed by the Minerals Council of Australia, which represents resource companies that produce more than 85 per cent of Australia’s annual mineral output. It is expected that in time these companies will require contract operators to meet BAR Standards instead of company-specific requirements.
