Thank you for communicating that here. I spent about a decade working in some niches of flight safety. What you say matches up with my very positive impressions of the sense of integrity and duty that seemed implicit in the people and processes.
Nice! I spent four years in flight test, and safety is truly no joke in the flight test world.
For others, if I named one thing I have seen the Air Force care about more than anything else, it would be safety. Flight Test investigations are actually very interesting, because there are two investigations:
- The safety investigation
- The criminal investigation
NOTHING you say in the safety investigation can be used against you in the criminal investigation.You could have violated every rule in the book and admit to it in the safety investigation, and it will not be used against you in the criminal investigation. That is because above all else, the Air Force does NOT want whatever happened to happen again.
Edit: I think this applies to all Air Force safety investigations, but I don't have experience with anything other than flight test.
ASRS provides some protection for crew and others to share any proactive observations related to safety, as well as to acknowledge mistakes without reprisal under certain conditions. (Sounds like the USAF Flight Test related policy you mentioned goes even further.)
All the data and information coming from all these many forthright reports is analyzed and shared in various ways, and used to drive improvements.
I suspect aspects of institutions like this would resonate with a lot of dotcom people, were we aware of it.
