What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You - The Importance of Tasking Sheets and Crossover Briefings

One of the interesting things about visiting with a lot of operators is seeing how they all use different means to achieve the same objective. Most operators use a “Tasking Sheet” - or some variant - to describe to crews, the type of work that is to be carried out. It usually includes, the Job Number; customer-contact information; on-site Project-Lead contact information; the dates; a general description of the work; number of people carried; ops gear required; payload, including weights; work sites and destinations (with Lat & Long); how many trips will likely be required, as applicable; whether the pilot will be expected to wait on-site, or not; ops gear required; an estimate of the number of hours that will be flown. Most companies also have a Crossover Briefing Form, that outlines the information that should be transferred when there is a crew change (whether or not the exiting crew member is on-site, or not). It usually includes, details of the job, not included in the Tasking Sheet; issues relating to the aircraft which should be monitored; any unserviceabilities that could affect the job; the location of all ops gear – and importantly, anything that is missing.  The Tasking Sheet and Crossover Briefing Form should be standardized, and mandatory on each job. They provide predictability for crew members, in a world that can be unpredictable.