NBAA’s 2025 Maintenance Conference Kicks Off With Sharp Focus on Safety

April 29, 2025

Leaders across the business aviation maintenance community opened the 2025 NBAA Maintenance Conference April 29, with an inspiring and thought-provoking message to work together to ensure America’s aviation industry remains the safest in the world.

The three-day conference, featuring presentations by 50 subject matter experts and 28 education sessions, comes during a challenging time for the industry, following a recent series of fatal accidents, incidents and close calls that have put aviation under a microscope.

During his opening remarks, NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen acknowledged to the packed room that, “People have been asking me – and everybody in aviation – is it safe to fly now?” According to safety statistics, the “data suggests the answer is ‘Yes,’ but the emotional data – maybe not as much.

“As a community, we could either look at the data and pat ourselves on the back, or we could feel the emotional pull and roll up our sleeves,” he added. “And I think what you are seeing is an industry that is rolling up its sleeves.”

‘History Driven by Innovation’

This year’s event in Columbus, OH, takes place a short drive from Dayton, where the Wright brothers developed their historic aircraft – a fact not lost on Conference Chair Nate Dietsch and Vice-Chair Brett Semple. “It’s hard to be here and not think about the area’s rich aviation history,” Dietsch said. “For that reason, we found it necessary and fitting this year that the theme for our conference is ‘Built on History, Driven by Innovation.’”

“As time passes and aviation technology progresses, we find ourselves having to accept and adapt to these innovations that are taking our industry into the future,” said Semple.
Conference attendees will get access to guidance and best practices for an array of emerging technologies, including innovations aimed at improving safety.

Former NTSB Investigator Weighs in on Safety

During a riveting keynote, flight safety advocate Gregory Feith, a pilot, former senior air safety investigator and Go-Team captain with the NTSB, offered perspectives gained during his 45-year-plus career in aviation safety.

“As an accident investigator, when I dissected an accident, I had to try and determine what that sequence of events was,” Feith said. “Where was the breakdown? Where was the lapse? Where was the deficiency that may have cascaded from a very benign event into a catastrophe?”

A common thread across many of these recent aviation accidents is human factors, Feith continued. And a big part of the solution to improving safety involves effective communication and collaboration. “There needs to be a synergistic relationship between pilots and mechanics,” he said.

Feith, who co-hosts the popular aviation podcast “Flight Safety Detectives,” offered analysis and lifesaving takeaways from several fatal aviation accidents involving maintenance issues. “Hopefully we’ll be able to learn lessons from fatal accidents to better understand how to make our industry safer,” he said.

Feith went on to encourage the entire aviation community to consider character, responsibility, accountability, professionalism and integrity when thinking about maintaining high safety standards every day.

“It is all about our attitude, our discipline, our motivation,” Feith concluded. “It’s easier said than done, because lives depend on it. We all depend on each other and the industry depends on us.”