Desert Jet Operations

Nothing is more important to us than the safety of your flight. That’s why at Desert Jet we’ve gone to extreme measures to ensure we’ve reduced as much risk as possible from our operation.

Desert Jet has an active Safety Management System in place. We proactively consider every potential risk and hazard prior to a proposed flight, and then mitigate each of these risks to an acceptable safety level.

We have three levels of oversight before a flight is ever dispatched.

• When a request for a flight is received, our charter dispatchers complete a safety checklist covering items such as runway length, airport capabilities and passenger requirements that may affect the aircraft’s performance capabilities.
• Prior to dispatch, our Director of Operations personally verifies that the weather is acceptable, the aircraft is airworthy and the pilots are fit for assignment.
• The Captain makes the determination of suitability of the flight, taking all current and anticipated conditions under consideration. This is a continuous process, beginning once the flight is scheduled and continues up until departure.

The Captain uses Desert Jet’s Flight Risk Assessment Tool to determine the actual risks present in the operating environment at the time of departure and scheduled arrival.

The Flight Risk Assessment Tool was developed exclusively through a collaboration between Desert Jet’s web developer and the company’s Safety Committee.  It is accessed via the company aircraft’s iPads and allow for immediate electronic submission for real-time collaboration between all departments.

The Destination Airport Analysis Checklist is used in conjunction with this assessment tool to ensure that any unforeseen risks, such as rapidly changing weather conditions, do not affect the ability to use a particular airport. If any unusual risk is present, or if a pattern of risk presents itself, the Captain and Chief Pilot together review the flight circumstances and proceed to mitigate the risk. Common mitigation strategies might include delaying a flight until conditions improve, or choosing more suitable alternate airport.

Once mitigation procedures have been implemented, the Director of Operations gives final approval to dispatch the flight. In any case, the flight is not dispatched until four personnel give the nod of approval for safe operations – the charter dispatcher, the Captain, the Chief Pilot and the Director of Operations.

Flight Crew

At Desert Jet, we place high importance on recruiting the most experienced and safest pilots in the country. We do thorough background checks during the recruitment process as well as numerous in-flight evaluations before ever extending an offer of employment. The result is that our pilots have perfect safety records and an average flight time of over 7500 hours.

Dispatch Support

While having an experienced flight crew is of utmost importance, it’s also imperative that the flight crews have the support of a good team on the ground. Our mission control team flight follows and tracks each and every flight. Our flight followers rotate schedules so that at least one team member is available 24 hours a day to track your flight and provide assistance as needed.

Training

Our pilots train annually in the finest, full motion simulators and aircraft at facilities such as FlightSafety, International and CAE Simuflite. Everything from minor and major systems malfunctions, on-board fires, cabin decompression and emergency landing procedures are trained, practiced, and checked in the simulators, replicating actual emergency scenarios. Crew resource management principles are emphasized throughout all training events for enhanced safety and to prevent pilot error. In addition, they participate in more detailed training on a wide variety of topics. Here are some of our recent training events:

• Bombardier’s Safety Standdown
• Tony Kern’s Program on Personal, Team and Organizational Error Control
• Emergency Drill and Evacuation Training
• Airborne Weather Radar Training
• Emergency Maneuvering and Upset Training
• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
• Automatic Defibrillator Training
• Hypoxia Training
• Various programs related to IS-BAO Registration and SMS Development