SDC2026: Practicing Emergency Plans Is Essential for Bizav Safety

March 24, 2026

A business aviation emergency response plan (ERP) is only as effective as the information in it and how familiar stakeholders are with its execution. That was the message from a panel of industry experts attending this week’s 2026 NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference, in Cleveland, OH.

To define an ERP, the panel referred to the NBAA Management Guide, which advises operators to have pre-established, clear procedures that will provide direction and guidance in the event of an accident or an incident.

“An ERP is not a compliance checkbox. It may look good on paper, but it doesn’t mean it’s real. So, pick it up, walk through it,” said panelist Gina Shealy of Fireside Partners.

Each panelist shared lessons learned during their careers that illustrated essential best practices. Many of these tips were tied to having easy access to updated and accurate contact information for flight crew, passengers and ERP stakeholders. They stressed that it’s critical to make sure specific emergency roles and expectations are clearly assigned.

“Find a reason to go in and update your contact information for all those involved, and practice your ERP unannounced,” said Caleb Stitely of Chantilly Air. “Your ERP is only as good as the information in it.”

Holding regular tabletop exercises is a way to not only improve their ERP but ensure that stakeholders are highly familiar with it. “Take recent, actual, emergency events and pretend they’re yours,” Shealy said. “Change the names to your own stakeholders. Go through the plan every week or go through it monthly. You don’t have to do the full ERP but take bits and pieces of it and normalize it. It needs to be part of everybody’s normal role so it becomes an additional responsibility, and not a separate, scary thing.”

Ideally, ERP exercises should be executed across departments and include local police, fire and rescue officials. With this kind of practice, operators will be much more prepared for a worst-case scenario.

“We would often bring in the fire department to come over to our hangar and take a look at our aircraft,” said panelist Carrie Wicht, CAM, of Executive Jet Management. “A lot of the fire departments based at airports aren’t familiar with business jets, so they would come over every year and do a training to see like where our exits are.”

Don’t put it off, the panelists said. Set aside time to build and practice an ERP that can stand up to real-world stress. This is how operators can ensure that when emergencies happen, teams will have the tools and information they need 24-7 to coordinate and respond effectively.

“As much as nobody wants it to happen, it does happen,” Shealy said. “And it’s a lot worse if you have not already had these discussions – if you’ve not already walked through these steps or familiarized yourself with the possibility of this. It’s not if, it’s when.”