Bloody Hundredth keeps safety first with 100th ARW safety office

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Luke Milano
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Airmen from the 100th Air Refueling Wing Safety office play a vital role in the mission by enforcing rules and regulations for safe working environments, providing safety briefings and inspecting each units work stations at RAF Mildenhall, England. The efforts of the safety office keep Airmen, neighbors and communities safe here.

“Safety supports the mission by safeguarding the Airmen, protecting resources, such as our aircraft and vehicles, and by doing that we preserve combat readiness so that our base is always ready for the fight,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Ferdinandsen, 100th ARW chief of safety.

The safety office helps preserve combat readiness by inspecting each unit on base.

“Our main objective is mishap prevention and making sure nobody gets hurt on the job,” said Staff Sgt. Ivan Victor Talle, 100th ARW occupational safety technician. “We never do the same thing every day because we need to inspect every unit on the base and different work stations include different inspections, including geographically separated units.”

The nine-person office is made up of three different departments: occupational safety, flight safety and weapons safety.

“Occupational safety looks at all the squadrons on the base and they work to ensure there is compliance and work with risk management within squadrons and within work stations,” said Ferdinandsen.

Ferdinandsen continued by explaining flight and weapons safety responsibilities.

“Flight safety works primarily with the flying and maintenance squadrons,” Ferdinandsen said. “They oversee everything with the Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard program which includes working the contract we have with for bird avoidance program.”

This includes monitoring local and migrating bird populations, regarding aircraft bird strikes with a goal to prevent future occurrences.

He finished by explaining our weapons safety works.

“Our weapons sections works with any types of classes of weapons from flares to ammunitions or bombs that come from transient aircraft making sure we are in compliance with our Air Force guidance as well as host nation guidance.”

The safety Airmen are able to stay knowledgeable on their job by getting continuous training throughout their career.

“We are required to go to continual training, called continuing education units, three times a year,” said Talle. “For example, I was able to go to a machine guarding class and a dental hygiene class which are Occupational Safety and Health Administration led courses so people in our career are continuously learning.”

The safety office puts their experience and knowledge to good use, but can only do so with the help of Airmen on base.

“Safety is one of the more important departments an organization can have,” said Ferdinandsen. “The shop is here to protect those on the base and off the base, but we are a small shop and aren’t able to see everything, so we rely on people to let us know so we can do our job and keep others safe.”