Santiago is an industry veteran living in Bogota, Colombia. Passionate about aviation safety and focused on helping companies adopt industry best practices to minimize incidents and accidents. For the last 37 years Santiago has been a commercial pilot at Avianca and is currently captain on Airbus 330. He was Safety Director at Avianca Holdings for nine years during which he has implemented the Safety Management System (SMS). In November 2016 gave support to the Chapecoense air accident, assisting the families of the deceased passengers, for which he was decorated by the government of Brazil with the order of ¨Caballero de Rio Branco¨. He achieved his initial safety certification from the University of Southern California (USC) and was an active member of the Star Alliance and IATA safety groups for seven years.