FAA: Shift away from enforcement mindset enhances safety

admin - News | 2016-10-11 08:44:24

"There's widespread sharing of safety data and that's a good thing because that data can be analyzed," FAA Office of the Director of Flight Standards senior technical advisor Chris MacWhorter told the US Air Cargo Industry Affairs Summit in Washington DC. "Enforcement is a tool that we have to use, but it's only one tool that we use ... We want to make sure we have incentives in place [for airlines] to report safety information so we can aggregate it and share it ... We're going to reserve [enforcement action] for those things that are reckless and/or are criminal. Otherwise, we're going to look at the system and see what caused [a specific safety] issue."

FAA Compliance and Enforcement Division manager Angel Collaku said the agency historically had a "very simple way of looking at" airlines' compliance with regulations. "There's a regulation, there's a violation, come down with the hammer," he said, describing FAA's old approach. But FAA is now looking at how "you nuance the issue of safety," he added, explaining, "We're seeking to work with the operators, recognizing that there are issues that shouldn't necessarily be dealt with by an enforcement action."

"We recognize that people make honest mistakes and we recognize that systems are never perfect," MacWhorter said. "Enforcement is still there as a deterrent, but it is reserved for things that we just can't tolerate."

In explaining the new approach when it was introduced by FAA last year, administrator Michael Huerta said the agency concluded that safety is best served when there is "an open and transparent exchange of information and data between the FAA and industry," adding, "We don't want operators who might inadvertently make a mistake to hide it because they have a fear of being punished. If there is a failing, whether human or mechanical, we need to know about it, to learn from it and make the changes necessary to prevent it from happening again ... That open and transparent exchange of information requires mutual cooperation and trust, which can be challenging to achieve in the traditional, enforcement-focused regulatory model."

Huerta noted that the changed enforcement/compliance approach is connected to FAA requiring all US airlines to establish a safety management system, which uses data analysis to identify safety risks, by 2018.

FedEx Corp. lead counsel-regulatory affairs Mark Hansen, also a speaker at the US Air Cargo Industry Affairs Summit, said FAA's new approach is changing the relationship between the agency and the airlines it regulates. "It involves a lot more conversation between the FAA and the regulated entity," he explained. "The inspectors are still out there, but they're learning a lot more about our business and how it operates and there is a constant dialogue going on ... Inspectors who know the business of the people they're inspecting make sounder decisions ... There is a lot more communication and that is really a good thing."

If a "mechanic puts in the wrong fastener [on an aircraft], what we're doing now is peeling back the onion and figuring out what led to the mistake," Hansen said. "Was the manual clear enough? ... You're always asking, how did this happen and what can we do?"

The "hitch" in the new approach is that carriers such as FedEx have to get used to FAA raising a safety issue, gleaned from data, even though the issue may not be tied to an existing regulation, Hansen said. FAA inspectors are now "interested in things that aren't necessarily regulatory, but things that may raise a safety issue," he explained. "It's in these gray areas that aren't really regulated where we'll have to do a bit of a kabuki dance for a while ... That relationship [between FAA and airlines] is going to have to be worked out because it's different than what we had."

In fact, MacWhorter said, the vast majority of voluntary reports from airlines since the new approach took effect last October "are pointing to system flaws" not related to adherence to a regulation. "The huge success we've had with these reporting programs is getting information that is not of a regulatory nature but of a safety nature," he explained. "From an anecdotal perspective, we've gotten positive feedback from the industry [regarding the changed approach] ... I understand that enforcement has always been a deterrent. However, everyone wants a safe system, whether it's on our side or on the industry side. What's the best way to achieve that? Do we achieve it in an adversarial manner or do we achieve it collaborating? ... We can find problems before they lead to an incident [through] a professional, collaborative atmosphere."

http://atwonline.com/safety/faa-shift-away-enforcement-mindset-enhances-safety

 

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