Don’t PAASS Up Safety Education – Attend the 2025-2026 PAASS Program, Collect CEU’s, Qualify for C-PAASS and Fly Safe

There are still several opportunities to attend the 2025-2026 PAASS Program this winter. Find a program here or contact your state/regional association. The PAASS Program covers the latest in aviation safety, environmental stewardship, and best security practices. Some states offer CEUs for PAASS Program attendance which go towards renewing your commercial pesticide license. In addition, PAASS attendance is required to be a certified professional aerial application safety steward (C-PAASS) which may qualify one for insurance discounts, amongst a number of other benefits. Most importantly, the program saves lives — ag aviation accident rates and drift incidents have decreased by nearly 26% since PAASS hit the stage.

The 2025-2026 PAASS program will begin with a review of agricultural aviation accidents from both the 2025 season as well as an analysis of accident trends from the recent past to this year. Accident details examined will include cause of accident, type of aircraft involved, and experience level of the pilot. Studying agricultural aviation accidents allows participants to understand how to avoid similar accidents while conducting aerial applications.

The human factors segment of PAASS covers information on how to reduce agricultural aviation accidents caused by human error. For 2025-2026 the subject will be how to conduct a proper weight and balance for agricultural aircraft. The goal is to reduce the number of takeoff accidents in the industry by ensuring pilots know how to calculate the weight of their aircraft and verify it’s not overloaded for the takeoff conditions. These conditions include density altitude, runway length and surface type, wind speed and direction, and the pilot’s skill level. Ensuring the aircraft is properly balanced is crucial to maintaining control of the aircraft throughout the flight as the hopper is emptied through the application process. A review of takeoff accidents caused by weight and balance errors will be included, as will videos of engineers from agricultural aircraft manufacturers discussing critical concepts. Real world agricultural aircraft examples will be used to convey key topics and to demonstrate how to conduct calculations.

The environmental professionalism segment of the 2025-2026 PAASS program will start with an update on EPA’s Endangered Species Strategies. The operating procedure for checking EPA’s Bulletins Live Two! (BLT) to determine where pesticide use limitation areas (PULA) are located and how to access and interpret the bulletins will be reviewed. New in 2025-2026 will be the wind-directional buffer zones, managed areas that count as buffers, and EPA’s mitigation menu of aerial application technologies and operating parameters that can be used to reduce the buffer distance. Examples from the insecticide and fungicide strategy will be used.

The 2025-2026 PAASS program will include a security segment that highlights the value of having a video surveillance system with a recording capability to provide security over aircraft and chemicals as well as document unexpected occurrences at an operation. An aviation medical examiner will cover how to avoid medications that can impact flying and how to stay properly rested to avoid fatigue. The 2025-2026 PAASS program will conclude with a series of multiple-choice questions asked using polling software to ensure knowledge retention of the material presented by the participants.