A few years ago, Capt. Franco Pescali - former Safety Manager of the Helicopter Department of the State Police of Florence - has started an important project to improve the safety of operations of helicopters. His project was implemented by EASA's European Helicopter Safety Team (EHEST) and is now published in 5 languages, including Italian.

Capt. Pescali, who has always been sensitive to Safety Issues, has found a substantial lack of skill by "lay people" (non-aviation personnel) in addressing the issues associated with the request for intervention and the helicopter’s presence. In the past, the lack of competence of such operators (city guards, volunteers of various bodies such as Alpine, Civil Protection, healthcare personnel, etc.) has led to serious incidents and accidents.
The idea of Capt. Pescali was to deepen the matter in order to make clear some "lifesaving" concepts to be applied if it is necessary to ask for a helicopter intervention and / or manage the landing area of ​​the aircraft.
Thus, the Checklist R.O.M.A., a practical tool that encloses the references to the information to be verified before operating a helicopter. The acronym means "Request" (type of mission to be requested and geographic coordinates of the point of intervention), "Obstacles" (check for obstacles in the landing area), "Meteo" (weather conditions in the area), "Area" (landing area information and how it was prepared).

The project was presented for the first time by Capt. Pescali to the "Conference on Safety of Operations in the presence of Helicopters", organized by Flyrad in Galbiate in 2014, in collaboration with the Civic Protection Group. Since then, thanks to the contribution of Capt. Stefano Burigana, an active member of EHEST, documents have been created to positively respond to the basic culture needs that operators and citizens shall have when dealing with a helicopter.

This project is a great step forward for Safety and therefore we encourage to spread it. An assertive communication of the main information means getting help timely and collaborating with the crew in order to reduce the problems they face during each flight.

The material is available free of charge and can be downloaded from the EEST website. For convenience, here are the English versions.

Flyrad is going to organize a specific conference on this topic in 2018. For more information, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.