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Afghan Air Force forms explosive safety working group

  • Published
  • By Capt. Robert Leese
  • 438th AEW PAO
KABUL, Afghanistan --  For the last month, the Afghan Air Force has formed the first ever Explosive Working Group, a select group of AAF experts from various specialties who have an interest in explosive safety, with a mission to develop a useable regulation that will outline explosive safety procedures for the AAF as well as meet U.S. explosive safety requirements.

The AAF explosive safety officer is the lead for this initiative and the regulation is being written in language and format that Afghans can use.

Staff Sgt. Rocky Phillips explained, "The regulations NATC-A Safety office have provided to the AAF have literally been U.S. regulations that were translated to Dari and have been received with little enthusiasm. I have already seen a vast improvement in the attitude of the group members. They are truly excited to be part of something that will be useful."

By having the Afghans write their own regulations, they are now in charge of their own destiny. If this works, it will set precedence for accomplishing written directives in Afghanistan.

The overall result will be a concise, easy to use directive, written and formatted by Afghans to implement explosive safety procedures to prevent mishaps while completing future training and combat missions. The expected completion of the regulation is March 2011 and is intended to apply to the AAF.