Safety Oversight Of The Federal Aviation Administration

Hearing to review the results of an oversight investigation. Two FAA Aviation Safety Inspectors have provided evidence raising serious questions of conduct violating the Fed. Aviation Reg¿s. (FARs) in the inspection and maint. program of Southwest Airlines (SWA). FAA employees have engaged in conduct, ¿which constitutes a violation of Fed. law, rule or reg¿n., gross mismgt., an abuse of authority and a substantial damage to public safety.¿ The Maint. Inspector for SWA knowingly allowed the airline to operate in March 2007 (and possibly beyond), and well after the inspection deadlines on a mandatory FAA Airworthiness Directive. There may be a pattern of regulatory abuse and that these regulatory lapses may be more widespread. Illustrations.

To improve aviation safety, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to have in place the initial capabilities of a risk-based approach to safety oversight, known as a safety management system (SMS), by the end of fiscal year 2010. FAA is also implementing new procedures and technologies to enhance the safety, capacity, and efficiency of the national airspace system. Data are central to SMS and FAA's ability to test the impact of these changes on safety. This report addresses FAA's: (1) current and planned use of data to oversee aviation safety; (2) access to data for monitoring aviation safety and the safety performance of various industry sectors; and (3) efforts to help ensure data quality. Charts and tables.

Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.

The FAA uses the Air Transport. Oversight System (ATOS) to oversee 7 legacyÓ airlines & 9 other airlines. This report refers to airlines that are not in ATOS as non-legacy airlines. Two other processes are used to oversee 99 non-legacy passenger airlines (NLPA), which represent a fast-growing segment of the commercial aviation passenger industry & carried 200 million passengers. in 2004. These establish a set of inspection activities for NLPA, & use principles of system safety to identify additional risk-based inspections for those airlines. This report assesses the processes used by FAA to ensure the safety of NLPA. Reviewed the strengths of FAA's inspection oversight for NLPA & the issues that hinder its effectiveness. Charts & tables.