2021/22 H&S Site Visit to Ohakea Air Base

Interns are off to a flying start in their H&S Careers

The 2021/22 GHSL Interns were invited by the Royal New Zealand Air Force to visit to their Ohakea Base on Friday, 21 January 2022.

This was an incredible opportunity for the interns to see first-hand how health and safety is weaved through all the bases work practices - including risk management, hazard identification and worker participation. Along with how the use of technology is helping to reduce risk exposure in what is an inherently high risk environment. 

It was really eye opener  for everyone to realise how many layers of health and safety practices that were put into place and built upon with every task or job undertaken on the base to be able to get one or two people into the air.

Georgia Nairne, the GHSL Intern commented “Getting the opportunity to test out some of the training equipment at Ohakea, such as the helicopter flight simulator, gave us a first-hand experience of the risks the Airforce pilots are exposed to and helped us understand why the team on the ground carry out the breadth of work they do to keep their people safe.”

The GHSL, would like to say a big thank you to Andrew Walters, Mike McDermott, and the rest of H&S team at the Royal New Zealand Air Force, for inviting and hosting our 201/22 GHSL Summer Interns onto the Ohakea base. We are very grateful for the New Zealand Defence Force's continuing support of the GHSL Summer Internship Programme.

If you are interested in a health, safety and wellbeing career with New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) check out the NZDF website.(external link)