What's BASH?

Flying Safety, April, 2001 by Gene Leboeuf

By tracking strikes and identifying the species struck, the BASH Team knows which species are causing the most damage.

It takes personnel from many Air Force specialities to keep aircraft flying. Whether your career field falls within the flying, maintenance, engineering, airfield operations area or some other discipline, it's easy to become so focused on your own duties that you have little understanding of what your neighbor does. While this situation might not be uncommon, there are some things everybody should know. Take the Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazards --BASH--Program, for instance.

BASH Program information is contained in Chapter 7 of AFI 91-202, The US Air Force Mishap Prevention Program. This guidance covers responsibilities for establishing and administering the BASH Program, all the way from headquarters level to base level. It covers lots of BASH Program details, from "Bird Watch Condition Codes" to airfield grass heights and lots more.

If one of your aircraft suffered a bird strike and you needed information on required actions, how would you begin?

One of your first actions should be to check for written guidance. It's available online at the Air Force Publications Web site at http://afpubs.hq.af.mil. From there, you can navigate to the necessary publications and forms and print out what you need.

If you're actually involved in a strike with a bird or other animal, AFT 91-204, Safety Investigations and Reports, tells how to properly report the strike. Chapter 7 contains BASH reporting information and directs what needs to be reported for inclusion into the database here at the Air Force Safety Center. You'll also find an address to the Smithsonian Institute, where feather remains are sent for identification. It is crucial that all strikes are reported and that remains from all strikes are sent to the Smithsonian. Information gleaned from these strike reports provides a huge benefit to the flying community and is vital for keeping the BASH Team's Bird Avoidance Model (BAM) up-to-date. By tracking strikes and identifying the species struck, the BASH Team knows which species are causing the most damage, and where and when this damage is happening. Information like this is one reason the US Air Force has the only BAM of its kind in the world.

Now that you know where to find descriptive and directive BASH Program guidance, you can learn more about bird and other wildlife hazards to aircraft by taking a look at AFPAM 91-212, Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard (BASH) Management Techniques. It provides general information on BASH Program management basics, wildlife control methods around an airfield, a list of hazardous species, a self-inspection checklist, flight considerations, an authorized equipment list and a list of other government agencies that may provide assistance. It's a wealth of information that should be on hand in all flight safety offices.

As it takes more than one organization to keep an airfield operating, there's more than one source of information for BASH matters. Three other documents that mention BASH are AFI 13-213, Airfield Management, AFT 13-201, Air Force Airspace Management, and AFI 32-7064, Integrated Natural Resources Management. These instructions don't directly address BASH, but they do identify a number of areas of overlap between the disciplines.

Other sources, like online Web sites, have also become great sources of information. We here with the USAF BASH Team have an excellent Web page with a much wider range of information than that available through the AF Publications web site. Access it by going to: http://safety.kirtland.af.mil/AFSC/Bash/home.html. You'll find enough information to keep you busy for an entire day. It includes previous articles from Flying Safety magazine, MAJCOM safety magazines and excerpts from the AFIs listed above that deal with BASH. There are links to other organizations that deal with wildlife as well as Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage, a US Department of Agriculture manual that provides information on all nuisance (or hazardous) species of wildlife.

If you happen to find yourself at a "joint use" location--an airfield where military and civilian operations are collocated--then you may want to log onto the FAA's "Airports Home Page" at www.faa.gov/arp/arphome.htm for their Advisory Circulars. The FAA has issued an Advisory Circular (AC), AC No: 150/5200-33, "Hazardous Wildlife Attractants on or Near Airports," dealing with wildlife hazards.

The most recent product from the BASH Team is another Web-based program, the Avian Hazard Advisory System (AHAS). It may be accessed at www.ahas.com. AHAS provides bird hazard information to pilots operating in the low-level environment. AHAS uses NEXRAD weather radar data and weather forecasts to post hourly updates on whereabouts of large flocks of birds moving along the eastern third of the United States. Plans are for the system to expand coverage to the central and western portions of the US as funding becomes available. The AHAS site also has a link to the BAM. This latest internet version of the BAM is a big improvement over what was posted on the Safety Center Web site in the past. BAM users can now access multiple data sets, along with the risk levels from birds, to gain a better understanding of bird hazards over their entire low-level route.