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Atlantic Aviation has launched a Tow Certified program that is designed to reduce the number of aircraft towing related accidents and incidents.

"Towing is involved in 70 percent of incidents and personnel with less than six months of experience cause 56 percent of the incidents," said Todd Smith, director of risk management for Atlantic Aviation. "This program is designed to reduce that number by improving training and is in addition to NATA's professional line service training program, Safety 1st, which we already have in place. It's an investment in safety."

The Tow Certified program consists of the following: 

* Atlantic will conduct scheduled management meetings consisting of FBO general managers and their teams to assess current line service technicians; 

* In the meeting, managers will nominate certain employees who have demonstrated continued progress, attitude and aptitude to become tow certified; 

* Once nominated, employees will be observed by a site trainer, ops manager, line manager and supervisor towing different types of aircraft under different weather conditions to ensure they are displaying appropriate skills to be tow certified; and 

* All parties must sign off on the line service technician.

Final observation will be completed by the facility general manager before an LST can receive their Tow Certified vest. This way the highest ranking manager at the facility has certified that Atlantic’s line service technicians can safely tow customers' aircraft under any conditions. Atlantic line service technicians will be identified by a yellow vest with blue stripes that read "Tow Certified" on the back of the vest.