Where Maintenance Meets Safety: Culture, Communication, and the Real Risk

Safety is not a department. It is an enterprise system.

In this live panel, Dan Harris sits down with *Al Mann**, **Rob Cox**, and **Michael Parrish* to map what safety really looks like when pilots, maintenance, leadership, and systems work as one. From getting mechanics to buy in, to digitizing squawks, to choosing when to keep work in-house vs. moving to a 145, the group shares practical ways to reduce risk without losing speed.

You’ll hear how culture turns reporting into improvement, why frequent safety briefs beat annual trainings, and how AI and better data can push predictive maintenance from guesswork to planning.

Inside this episode

✦ Why “safety” works best as a whole-enterprise management system

✦ Turning broker and pilot knowledge into structured data that prevents surprises

✦ Getting shop-floor buy-in: frequent briefs, open reporting, visible follow-through

✦ Where auto-pricing and automation fail without fee data, schedules, and accuracy

✦ In-house vs. 145: risk, tooling, training, and when scale makes the call

✦ How to vet an MRO: ask what they are truly expert in (watch for “everything”)

✦ Digital squawks, photos, and video that shorten troubleshooting time

✦ Predictive maintenance: moving tribal knowledge into usable datasets

✦ Scaling from 4 to 30 aircraft without losing safety culture

✦ Acting like a larger operator: Part 5 readiness, SOPs, promotion, and retraining

Whether you run a two-aircraft certificate or a national fleet, this is a framework for building a safety culture that actually shows up in daily decisions.

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✈️ The Iron Bird Podcast brings real conversations from the cockpit, boardroom, and hangar to the people who care about doing private aviation right.