Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

In the mid 60´s the Swedish Air Force started a disturbance reporting program to improve the flight safety. The reason was the large number of fatal aircraft crashes; of which many was hard to explain due to the lack of relevant data. This reporting program is still running and flight safety is today a natural part of flight operations. High standards in flight safety will improve the operative effect. This type of lessons learned are vital but not enough. Lessons learned from a tactical and operative perspective is needed. In 2013 the Air Force implemented a lessons learned-program to evaluate the yearly Air Force-exercises.

The purpose of this study is to describe and compare the two LL-processes from a theoretical perspective to show how they contribute to the common knowledge and complement each other.

The result shows that the processes look similar as they both from a theoretical perspective can be called formal with both collecting and connecting parts. On local level the organization are similar with local representatives, namely the Lessons Learned-officer and the Flight Safety-officer who supports local and central commanders. In both cases, the disturbance-program and LL-program, the aim is to manage the observations locally as far as possible.

The disparity between the two processes are mainly the HQ-organization, where the flight safety-organization is staffed and have clear instructions and mandates. When it comes to the LL-process the responsibility for the actions is not clear in the HQ. Furthermore, the deviation reports are managed in a IT-system with a database while LL are managed in an Excel-sheet. An obvious disparity is that the disturbance-program runs without an end-date, while the LL-program is more like a sub-project to the Air-Force exercise.

A general conclusion is the need for a common nomenclature within the Armed Forces concerning the Lessons Learned-process.