Press Release

Issued by ARGUS International.

October 26, 2009

ARGUS recently announced that is has been selected by the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) as a vendor partner for the Association's new Safety Management Systems (SMS) training classes. The announcement was made last week at the NBAA's Annual Convention.

"ARGUS has significant experience in all aspects of Safety Management," said Joe Moeggenberg, President and CEO of ARGUS. "We recognized awhile ago that hands-on training was critical to successful SMS implementation and in fact have been conducting our own SMS training courses for business aviation operators for the past two years. We are very pleased that NBAA is integrating this key topic into their professional development courses."

ARGUS has embraced the international efforts to mandate SMS implementation for business aviation and has followed the lead of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) in recognizing the need for worldwide aviation safety standards. The International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO), supported by both organizations as well as the NBAA as a measure of SMS compliance, is a key step in ensuring both compliance and a safer business aviation industry. ARGUS has successfully integrated the IS-BAO criteria within the overall ARGUS audit standard, a move that has been popular with customers.

The NBAA SMS training program will include two workshops. The first workshop, Introduction to SMS, is designed to be a two-day event that covers the basics of aviation safety and SMS concepts. The second workshop, The SMS Toolkit, is designed to address the SMS implementation and development process. Both workshops will utilize learning objectives and materials developed by IBAC and will focus on SMS processes and the SMS toolkit that is the core of the IS-BAO.

"We have been very proactive about the importance of SMS for the industry," continued Moeggenberg. "In addition to our SMS products, known as PRISM, our training classes, and now our collaboration with NBAA, we continue to make key information available to the industry through reports, position papers and other useful information."

ARGUS has recently released several reports focusing on promoting and understanding SMS within a flight operation. These reports are titled, "Confused About SMS?", "SMS For Senior Leaders", "Being Proactive About SMS", and a helpful tool called the "SMS Implementation Plan of Action". These documents, designed to help operators around the globe understand the regulations and assist them in making the proper decisions on such an important topic, are available at http://www.aviationresearch.com/free_data.asp