[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A REVIEW OF AVIATION SAFETY
IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
(112-83)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 25, 2012
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/
committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation
_____
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
73-986 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey Columbia
GARY G. MILLER, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri BOB FILNER, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
BILLY LONG, Missouri HEATH SHULER, North Carolina
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania LAURA RICHARDSON, California
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida
JEFF DENHAM, California
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
------ 7
Subcommittee on Aviation
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Chairman
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
SAM GRAVES, Missouri PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio BOB FILNER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota, Vice TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
Chair MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BILLY LONG, Missouri STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida Columbia
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida (Ex Officio) (Ex Officio)
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Panel One
Hon. Margaret Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation
Safety, Federal Aviation Administration........................ 12
Hon. David Grizzle, Chief Operating Officer for Air Traffic,
Federal Aviation Administration................................ 12
Jeffrey B. Guzzetti, Assistant Inspector General for Aviation and
Special Programs, U.S. Department of Transportation............ 12
Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D., Director, Physical Infrastructure
Issues, Government Accountability Office....................... 12
Panel Two
Thomas L. Hendricks, Senior Vice President for Safety, Security
and Operations, Airlines for America........................... 29
Scott Foose, Senior Vice President, Operations and Safety,
Regional Airline Association................................... 29
Captain Sean Cassidy, First Vice President, Air Line Pilots
Association, International..................................... 29
Gary M. Fortner, Vice President of Quality Control and
Engineering, Fortner Engineering and Manufacturing, Inc., on
behalf of the Aeronautical Repair Station Association.......... 29
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson, of Texas............................. 55
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hon. Margaret Gilligan and Hon. David Grizzle, joint statement... 57
Jeffrey B. Guzzetti.............................................. 68
Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D....................................... 84
Thomas L. Hendricks.............................................. 104
Scott Foose...................................................... 106
Captain Sean Cassidy............................................. 114
Gary M. Fortner.................................................. 122
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Families of Continental Flight 3407, written statement........... 2
Scott Foose, Senior Vice President, Operations and Safety,
Regional Airline Association (RAA), May 4, 2012, letter to
chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Aviation
clarifying information presented during the hearing, and RAA
member list.................................................... 39
Hon. Margaret Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation
Safety, Federal Aviation Administration, responses to questions
from Hon. Jerry F. Costello, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois.......................................... 65
A REVIEW OF AVIATION SAFETY
IN THE UNITED STATES
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas Petri
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Petri. The subcommittee will come to order.
Although the United States aviation system is very safe,
when it comes to aviation safety there is always room for
improvement. The top priority for our subcommittee is safety,
and I know that the FAA, aviation operators industry, and
passenger advocate groups share that priority.
With this in mind, today we will review the FAA's safety
oversight activities, covering a broad range of issues.
As we have noted many times in the past, the United States
aviation system is the safest in the world. On any given day
the FAA's air traffic controllers will handle over 28,500
commercial flights. In 2011, there were no commercial passenger
airline fatalities. Over the past 5 years, roughly 52 million
passenger flights were operated safely. This high level of
safety is the result of collaborative efforts by the FAA,
Congress, industry and by other stakeholders.
But we must not forget the one tragic fatal commercial
accident during those 5 years. We have taken steps with the
passage of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation
Administration Act of 2010 to address the identified weaknesses
that contributed to that tragedy, and we are accepting a
statement for the record from the relatives of some of the
victims of that airline disaster.
[The Families of Continental Flight 3407's prepared
statement follows:]
Mr. Petri. While the U.S. aviation system enjoys a high
level of safety, there are areas in which safety can be
improved. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector
General of the Department of Transportation have conducted
audits and studies to assess the FAA's safety oversight role in
a variety of areas, including terminal area safety, operational
errors, safety management system, oversight of repair stations,
and rulemakings required by the Airline Safety and FAA
Extension Act of 2010.
Today the subcommittee will hear testimony from
representatives of the Government, industry, and labor on these
and other safety oversight issues. As we hear testimony from
today's witnesses, I would like to highlight two areas of
safety oversight.
First, we will look at the requirements included in the
bipartisan 2010 Safety Act. As stated previously, this law was
enacted in response to the findings of the National
Transportation Safety Board and other investigations of the
tragic Colgan crash in February of 2009. The reforms directed
the FAA to, among other things, set new requirements for pilot
flight and duty time and pilot training and directed the FAA to
develop and maintain a pilot records database.
We recognize the Colgan family members for their continued
oversight and attention to ensuring that these requirements are
put in place.
I understand that the FAA has made progress on several of
the required rules, but that significant challenges remain in
terms of implementing other requirements. We look forward to
discussing the steps that have been taken and what remains to
be addressed to successfully implement the law.
The second area that I would like to highlight is the
increase in operational errors in recent years. According to
the Inspector General, operational errors where there is a loss
in required separation between aircraft have increased, but the
FAA is not able to fully explain the reason for the increase.
Operational errors pose a safety risk to the aviation system
and need to be mitigated.
According to the FAA, the increase in operational errors is
the result of increased reporting through the voluntary and
nonpunitive air traffic safety action program. Following the
audit, the IG found no evidence to support this assertion. The
Inspector General concluded that the exact cause for the rise
in operational errors is unclear. Given this, we are interested
in exploring this with the FAA so that we can understand the
true cause of the increase in operational errors and fully
address the safety issue.
It is our responsibility, regardless of how safe the system
is, to conduct oversight and address any possible safety issues
that may be present or arise in the future.
I look forward to hearing the testimony from the witnesses,
and thank you again for attending this important oversight
hearing.
Finally, before I recognize Mr. Costello for his opening
statement, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material in the record of this hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
I now recognize Mr. Costello for his opening statement.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I thank you for
calling the hearing today to review aviation safety in the
United States. I am pleased to see that a number of the Colgan
families are with us here, as they have been many times for
hearings over the past several years.
We all know that the United States commercial aviation
system is the safest in the world. It is the safest because of
the hard work of many individuals and professionals over many
years at the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board,
Government auditing agencies, organized labor, the airline
industry and also Congress, and in particular this
subcommittee.
As both the chairman and ranking member of the Aviation
Subcommittee, I have always made safety my top priority, and I
know that Mr. Petri has as well. In the 110th and 111th
Congresses we held 19 safety-related hearings and roundtables,
including 2 hearings on runway safety, 4 hearings on pilot
training and fatigue and a hearing on the FAA's oversight of
outsourced airline maintenance.
Additionally, in response to the February 2009 Colgan
Flight 3407 crash, we worked together to enact sweeping airline
safety and pilot training reforms, the strongest piece of
airline safety legislation in decades. We will receive updates
on all of these subjects today, and it is important that we
continue to hold subsequent hearings on the implementation of
the airline safety law.
I am pleased that we passed and the President signed into
law the FAA reauthorization bill, although I disagreed with the
funding cuts in the House bill which the FAA testified would
have harmed safety because the FAA would have had to furlough a
large number of safety employees. Fortunately, these cuts were
rejected in the final conference report. Nevertheless, the DOT
IG will testify today that we will still need to keep a close
eye on whether the FAA has an adequate number of safety
inspectors.
Likewise, we had a heated debate over an amendment accepted
on the House floor that both the NTSB and the FAA said would
undermine aviation safety rulemakings, including a new pilot
fatigue rulemaking. I opposed this amendment, which was also
opposed by the Colgan families. The amendment was dropped from
the conference report, the fatigue rule has been finished, and
the American public is safer now today because we won that
battle.
Looking forward, we must continue to work together to
ensure that safety continues to be the subcommittee's highest
priority and that we do not enact policies that could undermine
our work to improve safety.
We should continue to be vigilant about the FAA's oversight
of contract repair stations. Based on a 2003 DOT IG report that
identifies weaknesses in the FAA's aircraft repair station
oversight, some members of this subcommittee wanted to require
foreign repair stations to be inspected at least twice a year.
Instead, Congress adopted a primarily risk-based inspection
approach in the recently enacted FAA bill. However, the DOT IG
will testify that several weaknesses that they originally
identified in 2003 still remain and that this issue still
requires vigorous oversight.
Generally speaking, I am encouraged by the progress the FAA
has made implementing the comprehensive airline safety and
pilot training bill that we enacted in the 111th Congress. I
commend Secretary LaHood and the acting administrator for
completing a pilot fatigue rule and proposing a new pilot
training rule that will dramatically increase the training
standards for first officers.
As the Colgan tragedy made very clear, aviation safety
depends on making sure pilots have the training and experience
necessary to deal with adverse situations. I will continue to
work with the FAA and all interested stakeholders as this
process continues to make sure that the FAA produces the
strongest possible rule.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for calling the hearing
today. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I will
have several questions for them as well. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
I would like to ask unanimous consent that our colleague
William Shuster, a member of the full committee, be permitted
to participate in all of the proceedings of this subcommittee
hearing.
Mr. Duncan, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have heard
the opening statements that you and Ranking Member Costello
have given, and I certainly agree with all of your remarks. And
I salute you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Costello for the
great work you have done in this Subcommittee on Aviation
Safety. Certainly we all want to try to make our aviation
system as safe as possible and do whatever we can. You can
never rest on your laurels in any field or profession or
occupation, and we shouldn't rest on our laurels about aviation
safety. We should always be trying to make things better and
improve things that we can.
By the same token, the American aviation system has the
greatest record of almost any industry and anything. I did
chair this subcommittee for 6 years, but I now chair the
Highways and Transit Subcommittee, and it is a very unfortunate
thing that we have about as many deaths in 3\1/2\ months on the
Nation's highways as we have had in all U.S. aviation accidents
combined since the Wright Brothers' flight in 1903.
I am concerned. I know that this hearing is supposed to
look at aviation safety in general, and there are many
different aspects of it. I am concerned about something though
that we will get more into in the second panel, and I won't be
able to be here at that time because starting at 10 o'clock I
am going to be leading a tribute on the floor of the House to
Coach Pat Summitt, who received the top award of the National
Alzheimer's Association and is being honored by the Tennessee
delegation on the floor of the House this morning.
But there is a provision to apply these same flight crew
rest requirements to cargo aircraft as passenger aircraft, and
I think we need to be very careful before we--we need to look
before we leap on that, because I am told that that rule, if
applied to cargo airlines, would cost, according to the FAA's
own analysis, $306 million, which is about 15 times the
benefits that would accrue. In addition to that, cargo pilots,
I am told many cargo pilots now fly only 31 hours a month,
which seems to me is a real sweetheart deal, and fly about half
the time that passenger pilots fly. So I just don't know that
we may be correcting a problem that doesn't exist.
I understand that there were only two crashes in the last
30 years, or two accidents by cargo planes, and neither one of
those would have been prevented by this rule that we are
talking about. In fact, one of them apparently came about
because of personal problems that the pilot was having at home
and not anything due to rest.
So, I hope we look into that proposed legislation very,
very carefully before we get into it.
Already, because of the cost of fuel, we have been told
over the years that each one penny increase in jet fuel costs
the aviation industry as a whole $180 million to $200 million a
year, a phenomenal statistic. And now because fuel has gone up
so much, passenger travel is going to shoot way up, and because
cargo planes carry almost everything, the cost of almost
everything is going to go up. So we need to be very careful in
what we do in this regard.
I thank you very much for yielding me this time.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Shuster, would you care to make a
statement?
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief.
I was the author of that amendment that passed on the House
floor that was taken out in committee. I was disappointed,
because that amendment I believe dealt directly with safety
first. But looking at things based on science, not on emotion,
not on knee-jerk reactions, but based on the cost-benefit
analysis and looking at the different operations that the
pilots they participate in, there is passenger and cargo. And
there is a difference, as my colleague from Tennessee pointed
out. The time that a pilot operates cargo versus passenger
aircraft is significantly different.
But I am very pleased that the FAA came with a final rule
regarding the flight crew duty and rest requirements, and it
followed, as did our amendment, followed the President's
Executive order. I don't always agree with the President, but
in this case we were on the same page. So, the final rule I
believe does reflect the Executive order, it does reflect an
amendment we tried to pass, and it looks at passenger versus
cargo in a different way. One size doesn't fit all.
My colleague also pointed out the cost-benefit analysis,
the cost to the industry, which is probably much higher than
the FAA thinks it would be. As I said, once size does not fit
all. There are a few other significant things the cargo
industry has done in the past several years. It has reduced all
accidents significantly over the past two decades, and since
2003, have operated over 8 million flight operations with no
fatigue-related accidents. That is a pretty strong indication
they are doing the right thing.
It provides more and longer flight crewmember rest
opportunities than passenger flights. They spent millions of
dollars on sleep facilities, both in cargo hubs and on board
long-range aircraft. It operates with no passengers or flight
attendants, thereby allowing restful sleep aboard long-range
aircraft. And schedule of pilots, as was mentioned, they fly
significantly less than the passenger pilots.
So, again, I am looking forward to the hearing. I
appreciate and respect and support what the FAA did on this,
and I will continue to fight to make sure we do rules and
regulations in a reasonable way while maintaining a high level
of safety.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Boswell, did you have a word you wanted to
say?
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very briefly. I
told you I did not, and I looked over your panels, and I just
want to thank you for having the experts you have got before
you now. But I am also very interested in Panel 2 that we are
going to have.
It just made me reminisce for a second. Years and years ago
when I became a safety officer in a unit that I was in, and I
found out when I sat down with the crews, the pilots, the
people that flew in the aircraft and so on, is where I really
put it together, and we had what turned out to be an excellent,
very successful program. So I am glad to see that you have
airlines and regionals and the Airline Pilot Association as you
go down that list.
So, thank you very much. I think that we will learn a lot
and I look forward to what comes out of this. So I yield back.
Mr. Petri. I recognize the chairman of the full committee,
John Mica from Florida.
Mr. Mica. Well, thank you. And as Elizabeth Taylor said to
her sixth husband, I don't intend to keep you long. I will try
to be as brief as possible, like Mr. Boswell.
Well, first of all, I have to say thank you to Mr. Petri
and Mr. Costello. This is a very important hearing and a very
important responsibility of this subcommittee, and that is our
aviation industry and passenger service safety and oversight of
that.
Let me just say here we have been so fortunate. We have had
some great leadership working together. We did pass finally FAA
legislation that was 5 years overdue, 23 extensions. In the
interim we worked together.
The large commercial aircraft have had an incredible safety
record. We saw some problems with commuter, and through the
Colgan families and others everyone was determined to make
certain tat commuter passengers are just as safe as those on a
large commercial aircraft. We lost lives there. We put some
reforms in place, and actually last year's record was
incredible.
But let me tell you this. Mark this in the record. We will
have a horrible incident involving passenger aircraft. Why do I
say that? Because the odds are just totally stacked against us.
You can only go so long when you have so many human beings
involved, when you have technology that sometimes fails. And
people are going to come back and say well, what did they do to
make certain that this didn't happen? And this hearing is one
of them. And we have missed the mark.
I just got through talking to an aviation group, and I
cited NextGen. NextGen provides us not only a better way to get
our planes around, environmentally more friendly, shorter
points, knowing where the planes are in the air, on the ground,
changing out of a post-World War II radar-based system to a
satellite based system, all of that. But that program is 2
years behind. It is at half a billion dollars. Some of the
technical components, for example ERAM, 2 years behind, half a
billion dollars behind. And this needs to come out.
We have had FAA in turmoil, because I remember Babbitt
coming to me and people say why did you push to move this bill
forward? Because Randy Babbitt told me that his operations were
in a state of confusion. These 2-month, 2-week extensions, were
costing millions of dollars and keeping the agency in turmoil.
Now we have him departed. We have had an FAA with no
administrator at some times, now an acting administrator and an
under-siege administrator. And it is difficult to get things
done in that atmosphere. Then you don't have the blueprint,
which is the Federal law which we now have in place.
So this is an opportunity to get it back in place. I am
hoping that we don't have what I described that we are long
overdue for, and that is going to be, unfortunately, again
there are just so many human beings, so much technology in
place.
You have got to have two things that I think are important.
One, you have to have the personnel, and you have to have the
technology. I talked about that for a second. That is behind
schedule, over budget and not acceptable.
The second thing is personnel. We have some great air
traffic controllers, and thank goodness in the most recent
months we have not had another incident of somebody sleeping on
the job or not paying attention on the job or lax on the job.
Most of the incidents, and every one of them the staff will
tell you, every incident I try to investigation, was this a
rookie air traffic controller or was this somebody experienced.
Most of the incidents, unfortunately, have been with people who
have been experienced.
So we have met, and we have got to redouble our effort,
guys, to make certain that the air traffic controllers, and we
are changing many of them out because of their age and
retirement. So you have to have a program to make certain that
they are the best trained and also the best prepared, best to
go to work rested and all of these things.
And some of the conditions where air traffic controllers
actually in the United States stink, they need to be improved.
I have seen pets accommodated better than some of our air
traffic controllers, and that needs to be changed out and I am
going to work with folks to do that. We saw some of the
accommodations in Canada that were just outstanding workplaces
and conducive to putting a rested, alert well-trained air
traffic controller on the job. So we have got to improve that
part of the equation, which is the human equation.
So I guess that is my little longer than I should talk, but
this is very important. Again, I commend you and we will stay
on it with you and work with the agencies. I want to hear from
the witnesses. Thank you, I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Now we turn to our panel. The
Honorable Margaret Gilligan, who is the associate administrator
for Aviation Safety of FAA; the Honorable David Grizzle, the
chief operating officer, Air Traffic Organization at the FAA;
Jeffrey B. Guzzetti, who is the assistant inspector general for
aviation and special programs of the Department of
Transportation; and the person who assists us on many of these
occasions, Dr. Gerald Dillingham, director, physical
infrastructure issues, Government Accountability Office.
Ma'am and gentleman, thank you very much for joining us. As
you know, we thank you for your prepared statements and would
invite you to summarize them in approximately 5 minutes,
beginning with Ms. Gilligan.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MARGARET GILLIGAN, ASSOCIATE
ADMINISTRATOR FOR AVIATION SAFETY, FEDERAL AVIATION
ADMINISTRATION; THE HONORABLE DAVID GRIZZLE, CHIEF OPERATING
OFFICER FOR AIR TRAFFIC, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION;
JEFFREY B. GUZZETTI, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AVIATION
AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; AND
GERALD L. DILLINGHAM, PH.D., DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Gilligan. Chairman Petri, Congressman Costello and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us here
today to review aviation safety in the United States. I would
like to update you on the progress we have made to implement
the Airline Safety and FAA Extension Act of 2010. But as
mentioned in your opening statements, we know there is a lot of
interest in air traffic control as well, so I am joined today
by my colleague David Grizzle, the chief operating officer for
the Air Traffic Organization, who will be here to answer any
questions you may have on air traffic management.
Several provisions in the 2010 act helped facilitate major
safety advancements, such as the new flight duty and rest
requirements for pilots and a proposal to require air carriers
to implement safety management systems. Although some of the
provisions have taken longer than Congress anticipated under
the provisions of the act, we have made significant strides in
accomplishing many of the objectives.
In the area of pilot fatigue, which was identified as a top
priority in the FAA's 2009 call to action, we completed the
final rule, which uses the latest fatigue science to establish
flight schedules that mitigate and manage fatigue. Flight duty
periods under the new rules are more comprehensive and include
flight-related activities such as time spent in training and
standing by on call for flights at an airport. These duties are
part of the workday, they contribute to fatigue, and they must
be counted as part of the core job of flying the airplane.
We also took into account that off duty activities, such as
recreational activities or commuting, have an impact on
fatigue. To address this, the final rule establishes new
fitness for duty requirements that serve as a reminder to both
the airlines and the pilots of their professional
responsibilities to ensure that rest periods are used for what
they are intended, and that is to rest.
We met the statutory deadline in the 2010 act to issue a
proposal requiring air carriers to develop and implement safety
management systems. The FAA and industry recognize SMS as a
holistic approach to safety that allows for trend spotting to
help identify possible safety problems and correct them before
they lead to accidents or incidents.
We have initiated two rulemaking projects to address the
pilot training and experience requirements highlighted in the
act. The first project is a comprehensive proposal to revise
the current qualification and training requirements not just
for pilots, but for flight attendants and aircraft dispatchers.
Although we had initiated this project before the tragic
Colgan accidents, in order to fully consider the comments we
received on the proposal, to address many NTSB recommendations
that resulted from the investigation of that accident, and to
incorporate the mandates of the 2010 act, we issued a
supplemental proposal in May 2011. The comment period closed in
September and we are working on the comments to develop a final
rule to address these training enhancements.
We have also proposed a rule to require first officers to
hold an airline transport pilot's certificate requiring 1,500
hours of pilot flight time in most cases. We appreciate that in
the act Congress acknowledged the measurement of pilot
experience is not limited solely to the number of hours flown,
so our proposal would allow a restricted airline transport
pilot's certificate in two instances. First, graduates of a 4-
year aviation degree program who receive their commercial
pilot's certificate and instrument rating while studying at the
school would need only 1,000 hours of flight time. Former
military pilots would require only 750 hours of flight time.
The comment period on this proposal will close April 30th.
There are, as you have noted, a few areas of the 2010 act
that have presented some challenge to the FAA. The first
concerns the area of pilot professionalism. We in industry
recognize the need to continuously improve professional
standards to improve flight deck discipline. We have drafted a
proposal that is currently in executive review as we continue
to work on balancing the regulatory burden and the
effectiveness of the proposal.
Another challenging area is the development of a
centralized database of pilot records. We are working to define
the scope of the records to be reported and how to integrate
thousands of records kept on all forms of media from paper to
microfiche to various automated systems. We do have several
major milestones in place and we do anticipate a database proof
of concept test this summer.
All of these initiatives have been very complicated and in
some cases very expensive. As the rulemakings progress, we are
constantly evaluating how these provisions may best be
leveraged to improve safety while ensuring the benefits justify
the costs. We remain committed to addressing these safety
enhancements while continuing with our daily oversight
responsibilities, and now while satisfying the requirements
recently set forth in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of
2012.
Chairman Petri, Mr. Costello, members of the subcommittee,
this concludes our prepared remarks and we are prepared to
answer questions. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Grizzle.
Mr. Grizzle. Sir, I do not have a statement separate from
Ms. Gilligan's.
Mr. Petri. All right. Mr. Guzzetti.
Mr. Guzzetti. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member Costello, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on the state of aviation safety and FAA's
oversight of the National Airspace System.
As you know, FAA does operate the world's safest
transportation system, largely due to the dedication of its
workforce. FAA has implemented many initiatives to enhance
safety, such as its recent actions in response to the 2010
Airline Safety and FAA Extension Act. However, to realize the
full benefits of the programs it has in place, FAA must address
challenges in three key areas.
First, FAA needs to improve the way it collects, counts and
uses data regarding incidents where aircraft come too close
together in the air and on the ground. Over the past few years,
FAA has encouraged controllers to voluntarily report errors
through the Air Traffic Safety Action Program, or ATSAP.
However, FAA does not count all ATSAP reported errors in its
yearly totals. As a result, it is unclear whether the 53-
percent rise we saw in reported controller errors between
fiscal years 2009 and 2010 is due to more errors, improved
reporting, or both.
According to FAA, the increase is likely due to more errors
being reported through ATSAP, but our work does not support
this assertion. The agency's en route centers which have had
systems in place for years to automatically detect separation
losses saw a 39-percent increase in errors during that same
period. This would indicate that the increase is due at least
in part to more actual errors occurring.
It is clear that FAA can better leverage existing data to
investigate incidents, identify trends and root causes and
mitigate their risks. Currently FAA does not effectively
analyze data captured through ATSAP or through its automated
detection tool recently installed at terminal facilities.
With runway incursions, FAA has made progress in reducing
the most serious ones. Serious incidents declined over the past
decade from 53 in fiscal year 2001 down to only 7 in fiscal
year 2011. However, the number of serious incursions reported
so far this fiscal year is already up to 12, which is nearly
double last year's events. To sustain the progress made in past
years, executive level oversight and accountability will be
needed. This is going to remain a watch item for our office.
Second, FAA needs to improve its risk-based oversight of
the aviation industry. In particular, oversight at repair
stations has been a longstanding challenge for FAA and one we
have reported on since 2003. While FAA established a risk-based
system in 2007 for improved surveillance, our ongoing work
indicates there are still problems. For example, the system is
not applied consistently and it does not permit trend analyses
needed to better target repair stations with the greatest
risks. Our work has also shown that FAA needs to strengthen its
risk-based oversight of aircraft manufacturers under its
relatively new delegated authority program known as ODA. We
issued a report on ODA last year and FAA has responded
positively to our recommendations.
Because FAA may never have enough inspectors to oversee
every aspect of aviation, it is critical that it target its
inspector workforce to areas with the highest risk. A 2006
study mandated by this subcommittee found that FAA wasn't
effectively allocating its inspector workforce and they
recommended a new approach. FAA introduced a new staffing model
in 2009 and we are currently evaluating it. Thus far, however,
it appears that FAA needs to further refine the model to obtain
reliable staffing projections.
Finally, FAA needs to continue its focus on implementing
key provisions of the Airline Safety Act. FAA has made progress
on many of the Act's provisions, such as updating pilot rest
requirements. However, the agency has been challenged to
implement other key measures, as Ms. Gilligan mentioned. For
example, the new rest rules do not require carriers to identify
pilots who commute hundreds or thousands of miles to their duty
location. FAA is also several months behind on issuing rules to
improve pilot training and implement pilot mentoring programs.
All of these issues were seen in the tragic 2009 Colgan crash.
FAA is also behind in its efforts to enhance pilot
qualifications. The agency expects to issue a rule by August
2013, a year after the mandated deadline. Due to the increase
in flight hours the rule will require, FAA has met opposition
from airlines who feel the quality and type of training should
be weighted more heavily than the actual number of hours.
Airlines are also concerned that entry level pilots will have
difficulty meeting the new flight time mandates.
FAA also faces challenges in developing a centralized pilot
records database for carriers to use when hiring pilots. These
challenges include determining what records should be captured,
maintaining the flow of information during that transition, and
addressing concerns with the National Driver Register data.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate that FAA has
overcome many challenges and continues to take important steps
to oversee aviation safety. We will continue to monitor FAA's
progress to address these issues and we will keep this
subcommittee apprised of our work.
This concludes my statement. I will be happy to address any
of the questions you or other members of the subcommittee may
have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Dillingham.
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Costello, Mr. Duncan and other members of the committee. As you
have heard from previous witnesses, FAA regulates one of the
safest aviation systems in the world, and to its credit FAA
continues to strive for even higher levels of safety through a
shift to a more data-driven, risk-based safety oversight
approach. This shift means that FAA needs safety data that is
accurate, complete, and gives it the capability to identify
systemwide trends and manage emerging risks.
My testimony this morning focuses on three key aspects of
FAA's implementation of its new approach. First is how FAA uses
data to manage safety risk; second is how FAA ensures the
quality of its safety data; and third are the several
challenges the agency must address in using data to better
manage aviation safety.
Regarding how FAA uses data to manage safety, FAA collects
accident data and uses various voluntary reporting programs to
collect incident data, such as for runway incursions and
operational errors. FAA also collects data through its
inspection and certification program.
For decades, FAA, NTSB, and the aviation industry have used
data primarily in a reactive fashion; that is, after an
accident, to identify the causes and take action to prevent
their reoccurrence. FAA's new use of safety data combines this
approach and a proactive approach in which data are used to
identify emerging risks and strategies to reduce the likelihood
of accidents before they occur.
FAA also plans to use data proactively to identify risks
that might emerge with the introduction of NextGen capabilities
into the NAS. In 2010, GAO examined how FAA ensures the quality
of that data. We found that the agency had a variety of
processes in place that we consider good practices to help
ensure data quality. However, we did identify some
vulnerabilities in FAA's processes that could potentially limit
the usefulness of its data for both safety analysis and for
conducting oversight through safety management systems. We made
several recommendations to FAA to help improve and expand on
this capability to use data.
Mr. Chairman, although FAA has put in place various quality
controls for its data, it continues to experience data
challenges, some of which may hinder the agency's ability to
assess and manage risks. Similar to the IG's findings, it is
unclear if the recent increase in operational error reports is
due to more actual reporting or an actual increase in errors.
FAA also lacks data in some areas that are important for
monitoring safety risks. For example, the lack of ramp incident
data means that FAA is unable to assess the risk of safety
events in that area.
Another challenge is in what some industry stakeholders
have identified as the number one air transportation safety
issue. That is runway safety. According to FAA, there are three
runway incursions that occur each day at towered airports in
the United States, and research has also shown that runway
excursions can be just as dangerous as incursions.
Our October 2011 study found that FAA does not have a
process in place to track and evaluate runway excursions. The
absence of such a process inhibits FAA's capability to address
the risks of these time of safety events. Similarly, the lack
of complete data for inspections of pilot training schools and
pilot examiners makes it difficult for FAA to ensure that the
training standards are being met for the initial training of
pilots. In response to our recommendation or on its own
volition, for each of the challenges I have identified, as well
as others that are listed in our written statement, FAA has
efforts planned or underway to address them.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, given FAA's forecast of
significant increases in aviation traffic, we would urge that
all stakeholders not become complacent with the extraordinary
aviation safety record that has been achieved to date and
continue to do what will be necessary to make a safe system
even safer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Well, thank you. I thank you all for your
summaries. I have a couple of questions.
Ms. Gilligan, if you have looked at this, it is indicated
the FAA safety management pilot program, there is a difference
in the participation between the larger airlines and smaller
airlines. I think the information I have is that 14 of the 15
smaller air carriers, those with 20 planes or less, are not
participating in the program, and the point was made that it
might not be scalable for smaller airplanes. Is that true or is
that something that is of concern or is that being addressed?
Could you discuss that?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. As you know, we
do have a pilot program, because, before we put the rule in
place, we wanted to learn ourselves what was the best way to
frame the regulation for the safety management system. The
pilot program has been very helpful in helping us better
understand what the necessary elements are, and specifically to
your question, how can we assure that the rule allows it to be
appropriate to the size of the operation.
This is something we have been aware of for a long time. I
believe former Administrator Babbitt testified to this
committee that in an airline with two airplanes and a small
number of crew, written records may be sufficient, whereas at
the newly merged United Airlines, for example, clearly
automated systems that know how to collect and analyze data
will be necessary to be successful. We are taking that all into
account as we look at finalizing our rule to assure that the
rule is sufficiently flexible to allow all of the operators to
make the most use out of a safety management system effectively
and efficiently. So we will be watching closely to be able to
scale it to the size of the operation.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. I think this was mentioned by Mr.
Guzzetti, but I wonder if you could respond. The people in the
repair station industry argue that the oversight by the FAA is
often inconsistent between FAA offices and even within FAA
offices. Do you recognize that problem or is it being dealt
with or is there an explanation for that situation?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes. Again, Mr. Chairman, we certainly have
heard the criticism of inconsistency among FAA offices. We are
a large organization with over 125 offices across the country
and around the world, and individuals who come to work
intending to do the best they know how to do every day can
sometimes disagree. So we are constantly looking for ways to
document what the proper processes and procedures are so that
our staff is well informed and well trained.
We do have processes in place for any of our certificate
holders to raise questions if they believe that they have
gotten an inaccurate or an incorrect determination from one of
our inspectors, and we are really building a culture that
allows for that exchange of professional disagreement, because
we think that is healthy. Folks in the industry are smart. FAA
doesn't have the corner on the market on how to interpret all
of the rules and regulations. We need to work together to make
sure that we have the right safety outcome.
So we believe with those kinds of programs in place, where
people can ask questions, we will all get to the best safety
outcome. But it is a criticism we are constantly working to
improve.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. There has been some discussion, Mr.
Grizzle, of the increase in reported incidences of operational
errors and then some speculation as to the reason, whether it
is better reporting or more actual errors or whatever. Could
you shed any light on that situation?
Mr. Grizzle. Mr. Chairman, we have been in the process of
making a substantial change to the culture within the Air
Traffic Organization to encourage the voluntary reporting of
operational incidents. We have also been changing our entire
program for data acquisition of events that do occur. We are
confident that because of these cultural changes, the reporting
of incidents has increased. But we are not able to tell which
part of the increase is the result of greater reporting and
which part of the increase is the result of more incidents in
fact occurring.
However, as you know, the occurrence of incidents is
extremely rare and that is the reason that we have paid a great
deal of attention to making sure that we are able to harvest as
much information as we possibly can from every incident so that
we can turn that data into information which then becomes risk
managing changes of procedures, and we have done a very good
job in that regard.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Costello.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, just to put things in perspective, if I may,
to follow up on Mr. Grizzle's comments, I think it is
noteworthy to take a look at how many operations take place a
year versus how many operational errors there have been
reported. And as the chairman said earlier and a number of
other Members have said, one incident of operational error is
too many and we need to do everything we can to reduce the
number of errors.
But when you take a look at the ATC operations, how many
operations they handled in fiscal year 2009, there were 120.3
million and there were 1,234 operational errors, which is 0.001
percent of the total operations that year. The number of flight
operations that the air traffic system handled in fiscal year
2010, there were 118.9 million operations and there were 1,187
operational errors, which is 0.0016 of the total in that year.
So it comes down to in fiscal year 2009 about 1 error reported
either by someone in the system, including a pilot, to 1 error
per 100,000 flight operations and 1.5 percent errors per
100,000 flight operations in fiscal year 2010. So I think it is
worth noting. The purpose of this hearing is to make certain
that we reduce to zero, so there are zero operational errors.
With that being said, Dr. Dillingham, let me ask you, in an
October GAO report, the report, and I quote, says, ``We found
evidence to suggest that changes to reporting policies and
processes have likely contributed to the increased number of
incidents reported into the ATQA, the official data base for
operational errors.''
Would you explain some of the evidence that you reviewed,
the GAO reviewed, in order to reach that conclusion?
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Mr. Costello. We looked at some
of the data that you in fact have just provided to us and we
also looked at other situations where new policies and
procedures were put in place at the same time as technology was
put in place. And what we found in terms of evidence is we
found an association wherein we could see that there were more
operational errors being reported at the same time that these
various other activities were taking place, but we could not
establish a causal relationship and sort out the factors that
might be having the most effect on this reporting. And until
that kind of analysis is done, until that kind of statistical
analysis is done, as Mr. Grizzle said, it is an unknown,
logically it fits, but sometimes logic goes out when you
actually do the statistical analysis to ensure that what you
are seeing logically is in fact real.
Mr. Costello. A followup question. In talking about the
series of recent policy changes that Mr. Grizzle referred to
and you referred to as well, the FAA is reporting processes
that include making incident reports less punitive, removal of
facility incident targets, implementation of new technology and
a shifting to a risk-based system.
Would you explain for the record some of these changes and
whether or not you believe that there is a correlation between
these changes and the increase in reporting of operational
errors? You touched on that in answer to my first question, but
everything that I have read I have to conclude that there is a
correlation. You have no reason to doubt that there is a
correlation, is that correct?
Mr. Dillingham. I don't have any reason to doubt there is a
correlation. I would be hesitant to use that statistical term
of correlation. But understanding what you mean and that there
is in fact some kind of likely association, all of the things
that you mentioned as policy changes would contribute to having
people feel more free to in fact report incidences that they
were aware of.
Mr. Costello. For the record, could you explain just a few
of the policy changes that the FAA has been dealing with at the
same time taking into account these operational error reports?
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, sir. You mentioned one, the removal of
the limits that were in place for the number of operational
errors that could be reported by a facility. When that limit
was removed, it meant that supervisors were not as concerned
about going over that limit and anything that might result, any
kind of discipline or negative association that would result
from reporting as many operational errors as occurred.
There is also a de-identification of the controllers who
are in fact making those kinds of reports, so that again the
anonymous nature of it made controllers feel a lot safer or
freer in making those kinds of reports.
So all of those things together were contributing factors
as far as we can determine at this point.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Mr. Grizzle, would you explain
what not-to-exceed targets were and whether or not you agree
with the GAO's assessment?
Mr. Grizzle. We do agree with the GAO's assessment. Our
centers have had automatic incident detection technology for
quite a while. We took our ATO total of incidents that we were
expecting and we allocated that to facilities so that each
facility, in effect, had a quota that they were not to exceed.
Unlike the new error detection technology that we are
implementing now, which is referred to as TARP, the technology
that was in place in the centers involved evaluation and
characterization of the incidents in the facilities. And so
there was an opportunity for facility managers to characterize
the events as errors or not. Consequently, with the ``not-to-
exceed'' requirement in place, this was in fact an incentive
and a capability to manage down the number of incidents that
had been reported with the automatic detection technology.
Mr. Costello. A final question, and then I will probably
come back and have a few more after the first round. What if
any role did the TARP program, the Traffic Analysis and Review
Program, and the implementation of the radar voice replay
technologies play with regard to the increase in the operation
error?
Mr. Grizzle. It certainly has an impact. The TARP is in the
process of being implemented. It is currently in place in all
of our terminal facilities, but the data is only being analyzed
currently at 37 of the facilities. By the end of this fiscal
year, the data from all of our terminal facilities will be
analyzed for 24/7 operations, and at that point we believe it
will have a substantial impact on our reportable incident
numbers.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Guzzetti, would you care to comment?
Mr. Guzzetti. Yes. To piggyback on Mr. Grizzle's comments
about the implementation of TARP, FAA estimates that the number
of reported operational errors will increase greatly, perhaps
by as many as 600 to 900 additional losses of separation each
day. But again, not all losses of separation are operational
errors. In fact, just a small percentage. But even if you take
a small percentage of the amount of losses of separation that
will be recorded automatically every day by TARP, the number is
going to jump up. We don't know how much. But it is imperative
that a baseline is generated after TARP has been implemented
and settles down so that we get an idea of just what is the
norm, what is the baseline for the total number of yearly
operational errors. And only then do I think we can use that as
a performance measure.
Mr. Costello. My last question for you, Mr. Guzzetti. You
cited that in 2010 there was a misinterpretation of arrival
waivers in Southern California TRACON as a factor in
contributing to the statistical spike in operational errors.
Can you explain what actually happened and how it impacted the
operational error statistic?
Mr. Guzzetti. Yes, Congressman Costello. In early 2010 in
the Los Angeles region the controllers there, Southern
California TRACON, were bringing airplanes into LAX as well as
Hawthorne. Hawthorne had a runway that was close to LAX and
they were kind of treating it as three parallel runways in
terms of routing these airplanes in there.
The Southern California TRACON was using this procedure for
many years. They felt it was safe. However, FAA's AOV ATC
oversight organization came in and said, ``You know what? We
don't think this is safe. We think there is a loss of
separation here.'' And they made them go back 45 days, which is
how long they keep recorded radar data, and they found that 147
losses of separation as a result of this approach procedure
should be deemed to be operational errors and they added that
to the count. That accounted for about 23 percent of that spike
that I alluded to between 2009 and 2010.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had two conflicting
meetings, so I missed much of the testimony, but I appreciate
the witnesses' contribution.
Ms. Gilligan, I am told that the FAA is behind in issuing
the final rule for pilot qualifications. What is the status of
this rulemaking effort?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, Congressman. We did issue that rule. It
is currently out for comment. The comment period will close at
the end of this month and then we will work very quickly to try
to get this to final rule. As you know, under the statute, the
requirement for 1,500 hours and for all pilots to have an ATP
will go into effect in August of 2013, so we want our rule to
be in place by that same time.
Mr. Coble. Thank you. Furthermore, I am told that the FAA
is working to refine its inspector staffing model to more
effectively identify the number of inspectors needed and where
they should be placed to address the greatest safety risks.
What is the status of this effort, Ms. Gilligan?
Ms. Gilligan. That model, sir, has been in use actually
over the last two budget cycles, so we have been making some
use of the model. But we are trying to refine the data that
goes into it. The way we set up the model originally, we
collected data from subject matter experts, inspectors out in
the field, about what they do and how often they do it. But we
do think there can be some refinement brought to that. So with
each year we are learning more about how to really try to
calculate what our future need will be based on our past
experience, which is really how we have set up the model.
So, again, we have used it as we have developed our budget
requests for the last couple of fiscal years, but we are just
trying to make it as tight as we can.
Mr. Coble. I thank you.
Mr. Guzzetti, you may have touched on this, but let me ask
Dr. Dillingham a question. Doctor, what are the causes of
runway incursions and what has the FAA done to mitigate
incursion risks?
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Mr. Coble. We have looked at it
over the last decade, and there are three principal causes for
runway incursions. One is failure to comply with ATC
instructions. Another one is what is referred to as lack of
situational awareness. Oftentimes if a pilot is unfamiliar with
the aircraft or with the airport in fact, you can in fact lose
your place and cause a runway incursion. And then the other
one, the other factor is just not conforming to standard
operating procedures.
So those are the three factors. And FAA has taken a myriad
of actions to address this issue, including updating the
taxiway and runway markings, putting in technologies like
runway lights to indicate when a runway is in use. They have
done a number of things in terms of training of pilots,
controllers.
So they have done, as I said, a myriad of things to address
these things, but they still occur, and part of it is it is a
learning experience, and also the human element in it means
that you are not going to get all of them out down to zero. But
the effort is being made.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen
for being with us.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Capuano, any questions?
Mr. Capuano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I was a
little late. I had other things I had to do so I didn't hear
your testimony. I have reviewed it. And also, I am kind of a
simple guy. The chairman and the ranking member do a great job
on the details and the technicalities. I am a pretty simple
guy. I flew down here, flying home hopefully Friday. My wife
and her family are currently on a plane.
I just want to know a really simple thing. I think really
what America wants to know is just one simple thing, and I
would like to hear from each of you.
Ms. Gilligan, is it safe to fly?
Ms. Gilligan. Mr. Capuano, I can assure you that everyone
at FAA and everyone in this industry works every day to assure
that it is as safe as it can be. I think our record
demonstrates that we have made that commitment, and that we are
continuing to meet it. I think as the chairman and Mr. Costello
identified early on, we are not resting on those laurels
though.
Mr. Capuano. No, I respect everybody's attempt to get to
zero. We all--everybody wants to do that. But basically, you
fly, you family flies?
Ms. Gilligan. Of course.
Mr. Capuano. You recommend to everybody you know that
flying is safe.
Ms. Gilligan. We wish you could fly to the supermarket
because it is safer than lots of other modes of transportation.
Mr. Capuano. I could carry more groceries, too. Mr.
Grizzle, is it safe to fly? Do you recommend? Do you recommend
to your family to?
Mr. Grizzle. Sir, it is extremely safe. In fact, when
people ask me what is the safest airport to fly out of, I say
the one closest to your home. Because once you get on the
airplane you are in one of the safest spots you can be in your
entire day.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you. Mr. Guzzetti?
Mr. Guzzetti. I would concur that it is safe to fly. As we
have all indicated in our testimony, the United States has the
safest air transportation system in the world. However, there
is always room for improvement. I am a pilot myself. I fly
airplanes myself, as well as take my family on airplanes. But I
also recognize as a former accident investigator and as an
aeronautical engineer, that there is always room for
improvement and the key to improvement is constantly remaining
vigilant and collecting data.
Mr. Capuano. Mr. Dillingham, the same question.
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, I concur that it is safe to fly. Some
aspects of flying are safer than others. I think there is
beginning to be a consensus that the most dangerous part of the
flight is when the wheels are still on the ground.
Mr. Capuano. And I thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Now,
obviously, I agree with that, but you are the professionals.
You are the experts. I am not. And the truth is, most
Americans, they don't understand half of the acronyms you use.
I struggle to keep up with some of them myself. And the truth
is, I understand some--I also understand that accidents happen,
you know, sometimes they are mechanical, and sometimes they are
human error, and it happens. And I really, I will tell you
unequivocally, that I really respect the job that all of you do
to try to get that to zero. You are pretty darn close to zero,
if you want the truth, from everything I know, and as a flying
person myself, I want to thank you for that, and thank you for
your testimony today.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here today. I appreciate the line of questioning of my
colleague from Massachusetts, because I have been telling my
children for the last 15 years when we go to fly somewhere,
they are concerned about flying and safety, and I always tell
them the most dangerous part of the trip is getting to the
airport. So I appreciate that. My 20-year-old son, I will take
the testimony back and he will finally believe they me that I
know something--what I am talking about.
Ms. Gilligan, I want to commend you on the ruling. I think
it was the absolutely the right way to go, taking into what you
took into consideration, and the question I have is, isn't it--
isn't it true that cargo carriers and passengers are vastly
different models the systems operate under? Although the
fatigue can have the same reaction, the fact is they operate
differently. Can you talk a little bit about that, what you
went through and what you found as you came up to make the
ruling?
Ms. Gilligan. Sure. Yes, Congressman, it is accurate that
the model for cargo is very different from the passenger
carrying model. Having said that though, as you point out,
fatigue affects all of us the same way. So we do think that
there are elements in our new rule that could be very
beneficial to the cargo industry. In fact, we did take into
account in the rule that oftentimes pilots are given rests
after they have flown into a hub airport, while boxes are being
moved they are given an opportunity for rest, and we would
allow cargo operators to take credit for that additional rest,
for example, under the new rule. We also have----
Mr. Shuster. How long a time could that last?
Ms. Gilligan. I believe in the rule it was credit for up to
a 4-hour rest period, and it would be 3 to 4 hours of credit,
so for additional flight time after that rest period.
Mr. Shuster. So a pretty significant nap?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, because that is really how the industry
works right now. As I think you know, the model is the aircraft
fly into a hub location, packages are sorted for quite a period
of time, and then the flights are taken out. The pilots, during
that in-between time, can get a substantial amount of rest that
can allow them then to continue to fly for a longer period of
time after that rest.
So we did try to accommodate that in the new rule. And that
is why the administrator and the secretary have really
encouraged cargo operators to opt into the new rule, although
we do did not require that they be covered by the rule.
Mr. Shuster. And in your analysis, it failed the cost-
benefit analysis, as you went through. Can you talk a little
bit about that?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, sir. As you mentioned in your opening
statement, we look at the cost benefit for the full proposal,
but we do look at it as it would affect particular segments of
the industry, which is required through the Executive order.
When we looked at the immediate impacts or the cost impacts for
the cargo operators, the cost for implementing the new flight
duty and rest rules was substantially higher than the benefits
that we could quantify.
Mr. Shuster. Right.
Ms. Gilligan. We do believe there is value in reducing
fatigue, but it is sometimes hard to quantify that, and for
those reasons we did not keep the cargo community in the rule.
Mr. Shuster. All right, so in your view, your expert
opinion, has safety been compromised in any way, shape, or form
under this rule?
Ms. Gilligan. The framework that we currently have in place
that the cargo operators will continue to operate under we
believe sets an appropriate level of safety. We do think
improvements will be made for those that will move into the new
rule, and we will continue to work with the cargo operators as
they implement their fatigue risk management plans to make sure
they are analyzing their own schedules to see if there is risk
and to see that they mitigate it.
Mr. Shuster. All right. Well, thank you very much and I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Boswell, do you have any questions? Ms.
Johnson?
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me apologize for being late. This committee meeting started
while I was in another meeting. Let me preface my remarks by
simply--my questions by simply thanking the witnesses, and
thanking them for being a part of the safety, and I want to
especially thank Dr. Dillingham, who I have seen come before
this committee year after year after year, and his opinions and
findings have never been questioned. And I think that speaks
well for his work.
I truly believe that the airline industry is safe. For 20
years I have gone back and forth almost every weekend. And even
though I have landed places other than where I was supposed to
land, it was safe, and that is much appreciated. What I would
like to pose for the witnesses is, what is it we need to do to
keep it safe? Where are we in NextGen? Where are we in
technology, and what may be the threats?
I am sorry I didn't hear your testimony earlier.
Ms. Gilligan. Congresswoman, actually, where we are
focused, working with industry, is on trying to understand what
are mistakes that may be happening in the system today that
haven't manifested themselves as an incident or an accident,
but where we can intervene in time to change training or
procedures or processes so that those mistakes are what we call
captured so they don't cause real risk in the system.
And that is really, I think where as an industry we are
focused, on trying to understand what can we learn from
everyday operations that let us make the system constantly
safer. I think we are making good progress in understanding how
to analyze the data, identify risks, and put in place
mitigations.
Mr. Grizzle. And let me speak to the NextGen implications
on safety. It does, in fact, have a significant impact on
improving safety. Let me identify three ways, recognizing that
most of our safety issues are, in fact, human error issues.
NextGen provides more data to both controllers and pilots so
they will have more information for making the decisions that
they need to make.
There are also tools that substantially reduce the
opportunity for human error, for example, in communicating
route changes which will be done in the fully implemented
NextGen world completely digitally and without having to rely
upon voice communications.
The third area is that, because NextGen expedites the route
of flight of aircraft, it causes fewer route changes that need
to be done in the first place. And so in those three areas,
particularly, it will be very beneficial.
Mr. Guzzetti. Congresswoman Johnson, the Inspector
General's office, our office, believes that there are several
areas that FAA could continue to work to improve safety. One of
them is the issue of what we have been discussing in regards to
operational errors. The risk of loss of life when two airplanes
collide on the ground or in the air is low, but if it does
occur, there will be a catastrophic loss of life. So that is
why there is a lot of concern about tracking these near misses.
Secondly, the inspector workforce, the risk-based approach,
is a positive step, but it is a work in progress. There are
some problems with the fact that it is not being--it is not
robust enough at this point.
And lastly, the things that came out of the tragic Colgan
accident in regards to human elements in aviation, the pilot
training, knowing which pilots airlines are hiring and how they
are being trained, we have identified issues in that regard
which is contained in our testimony.
And then I would like to also mention that our office has a
large body of work in regards to NextGen, and I would agree
with Mr. Grizzle that the potential for NextGen to make things
more efficient and more safe is absolutely there. However,
NextGen is experiencing some management problems, contracting
problems, and delay problems. This is a new technology and the
transition will be key to ensure that things are being kept
safe.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you.
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Congresswoman Johnson, for the
kind words, and I will take that back to my staff as well. I
think what the FAA representative said, we agree with that,
that NextGen is going to be a positive in terms of improving
safety. I think the risk management that FAA is doing now is
also going to be a positive. And as you said, there is always
going to be the human element involved in this. But if we look
from the late 1990s to where we are now in our aviation safety
record, people keep saying it over and over again, that we
indeed have the safest system in the world. I think FAA
recognizes, and we will be monitoring to ensure that they
recognize where the issues are, and they are about the business
of dealing with those issues each and every day. So we would
recommend that they in fact do expedite the technology as well
as keep up the education and the regulatory oversight that they
currently undertake.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Let's see. Mr. Cravaack, do you have
a question?
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sorry. I appreciate
the testimony today on obviously something that is near and
dear to my heart. And I would have to, as an airline pilot with
many hours, I believe we do have fantastic safe skies and
professionals that want to make sure that our skies remain safe
and will do everything to do that.
But I if I would, I would just like to ask a couple of
questions. Ms. Gilligan, if you could tell me, how did the
carve-out for cargo pilots actually occur, because going up to
the President, everything is, you know, is one level of duty
time, flight-time, duty-time rules. And then there was a carve-
out for cargo pilots. How did that actually occur?
Ms. Gilligan. Congressman, as you point out, the initial
proposal applied to all aspects of the industry. One of the
things we were looking to accomplish was to have a single
framework for flight duty and rest to replace three or four
models that we have now, which have come into place over many
years as industry grew and as the capabilities and distances
airplanes could fly increased. So we did have a single
proposal. But as I said in response to Congressman Shuster, we
are also required to do an analysis of the cost and benefits in
different elements of the community, and when we looked at the
cost for the cargo community, the costs were quite high and the
quantifiable benefits were substantially lower than those
costs. And so we always look to try to assure that we are
getting a comparable level of societal benefits to the costs
that any rulemaking would drive, and in this case we could not
reach that balance. Rather than hold up the whole rule to try
to come up with a new proposal, the rule would go forward for
the passenger carrying flights because we could demonstrate
strong societal benefits from those costs, that we would not
include cargo at this time but that we would work separately,
as the Secretary indicated, to encourage the cargo operators to
opt into the new framework which is based on the science of
fatigue in a way that our other rules really don't reflect.
Mr. Cravaack. So basically it was a financial decision,
correct?
Ms. Gilligan. Part of the rulemaking analysis is to look at
the cost and benefit that the requirement will have.
Mr. Cravaack. So the data associated with the extricating
rhythm of the pilots and flying and things like that was set
aside for the financial aspect of it?
Ms. Gilligan. Well, no, sir. The way we look at determining
the benefits is to look at past accidents and incidents and
what contributed to them. What the data indicated was that at
this point the cargo accident rate does not demonstrate fatigue
at a level that required us to change the standards. That is
kind of the easiest way to describe it. As has been----
Mr. Cravaack. Were you looking at it as a percentage
because there is a lot less cargo aircraft in the air than
there are passenger aircraft?
Ms. Gilligan. It actually has to do with the econometric
model that is used which takes a cost for what society is
willing to pay to protect a life. And there are many more
passengers, or lives involved in a passenger aircraft than in a
cargo aircraft.
Mr. Cravaack. Could you repeat what you just said?
Ms. Gilligan. That the econometric model that is used by
all agencies that do regulations is to look at what society is
willing to pay to protect the value of life.
Mr. Cravaack. That is what I thought you said. OK. Thank
you. I appreciate that testimony. A little chilling, but I
appreciate it.
Mr. Grizzle, if you don't mind, both the IG and the GAO
have indicated an improved reporting process that cannot alone
explain the increase of operational errors. What does the FAA
believe are the other contributing factors to increase how the
FAA is addressing those factors?
Mr. Grizzle. The most important action we are taking, sir,
is making sure that we harvest all of the information from the
voluntary disclosures in order to identify safety risk and then
be sure that we convert that information into actionable items.
Through this data we have identified 5 top risk areas, and to
address those 5 top risk areas, we have developed 22 separate
risk mitigating procedures that we are in the process of
implementing and intend to have implemented by the end of this
year.
Mr. Cravaack. OK, if I can go back to you, Ms. Gilligan,
real quick. Segments of the industry are very concerned about
the public disclosure of the safety management system that is
being collected and protecting that data. How do you propose to
address this problem?
Ms. Gilligan. Well, Congressman, actually the
reauthorization bill will give us some additional authority to
be certain that safety data is protected and only used to
improve the safety of the system. So again, as we go forward
with our safety management system rule, we will be looking to
put in place those kinds of protections very much based on the
work of this committee, which provided the basis for that in
the reauthorization.
Mr. Cravaack. I think one of the most valuable inputs that
you have are pilots, you know, and air traffic controllers need
to voluntarily submit suggestions without any fear of
retribution, because that is where the answers are going to
come from.
I am over my time, sir, and I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Costello.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Chairman, thank you. One final question
for Ms. Gilligan. As you know, in the 2010 Safety Act, for good
reason, I believe, we put in a requirement for a database for
centralized pilot records. You mentioned in your written
testimony that there are several technical challenges
associated with implementing that section of the act. Can you
detail those for us for the record?
Ms. Gilligan. Yes, sir. As we mentioned in the testimony,
there are some issues around exactly what records need to be
collected and so we are trying to get common understanding
throughout the industry of who and what we should be saving and
what we should be collecting.
Secondly, there are two big challenges. One is the IT
system required, getting the database actually put together,
and we are trying to prototype that this summer which will go a
long way to helping us understand how the technology of it
would work.
But I think the biggest challenge for us will be the actual
ability to integrate records that are in paper, on microfiche,
on mimeograph, some of them automated in the last more recent
years, but for pilot historic records. There are pilots who
have been in the FAA system for 20, 30, 40 years, and there are
a tremendous number of records, most of them starkly paper,
that will all have to be somehow incorporated into the system.
So now we are trying to understand how we can do that
effectively and efficiently.
Mr. Costello. So what can we expect from a planning
standpoint? Is there a plan to do this?
Ms. Gilligan. We do have some milestones. Unfortunately, we
have such a demand in our rulemaking program right now that
because of the challenges technically, we aren't really ready
to start the rulemaking process. Again, we are hopeful with the
prototyping this summer that we will better really understand
what we are up against, and based on that, we will be able to
come up with a more realistic schedule.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And again, I thank
our witnesses for being here and I especially thank the Colgan
families for being here as well.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. I have one question. I don't know
quite who to address it to, but we have been talking about a
nearly perfect record of safety, but arise in some reported
incidents though at a very small level. Everyone is aware, I
think who follows it, that the aviation industry has
traditionally for many years and continues to be, aspects of
it, under financial pressure. American Airlines is in
bankruptcy right now, Pinnacle that owned Colgan, which did
have an accident, is in bankruptcy.
Is there any correlation or relationship at all or are
there safeguards to protect from people cutting corners because
of their financial situation?
Ms. Gilligan. Mr. Chairman, if I may start. I am sure
others will have opinions. I think that it is clear throughout
the industry that an investment in safety is an important
business investment. I think there is broad understanding that
a fatal accident has a tremendously negative impact, not just
on the operator involved but throughout the industry. So what
we see from the FAA is continued investment in safety systems,
like the safety management system, like data systems, so that
carriers understand what is happening within their system.
At the same time, within FAA, we have always had a program
where inspectors enhance their oversight when there are
financial problems. So as we went through mergers we had the
two teams that continued to oversee, for example, United and
Continental, as they operated, and a third team that monitored
and managed the merger so that we had good eyes on everything
that was happening because there is some risk, obviously, that
some misstep or some human error can occur while you are making
those kinds of changes. The same with bankruptcy. As soon as a
carrier announces that they are going into bankruptcy, we
enhance our oversight system to focus on evaluating the changes
they will have to make as they downsize or as they furlough, or
whatever the effects of bankruptcy may be. And I think those
two sides, the industry's commitment to aviation safety as a
good business practice with heightened FAA oversight when there
is financial problems, gives as you good balance to assure the
levels of safety continue.
Mr. Guzzetti. Chairman Petri, if I may, our office is
completing an audit in regards to code share that I believe the
subcommittee requested, and one of the aspects of the three
things we are looking at is whether safety is handled any
differently with mainline carriers as opposed to the code-
sharing partners. And you are correct about the economic
situation. I think most of the code-share airlines' revenues
are from the mainline carrier which they utilize to feed the
main lines. But yet our audit is finding that FAA really
doesn't have a requirement to look at those code-share
agreements. And perhaps there could be some incentives in those
agreements, or aspects that could impact safety. That is one of
the things our audit is looking at.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Again, thank you all for your
statements, and for your conscientious response to the
questions we have asked. This concludes the first panel, and we
will now turn to the second panel. And as it is taking its
place, as they are taking their places, let me introduce them
to you. The panel consists Mr. Tom Hendricks, who is the senior
vice president for safety, security and operations, Airlines
for America; Mr. Scott Foose, who is senior vice president,
operations and safety, Regional Airline Association; Captain
Sean Cassidy, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots
Association; and Mr. Gary M. Fortner, who is vice president of
quality control and engineering, Fortner Engineering, on behalf
of the Aeronautical Repair Station Association.
I would like to express all of our thanks for you gentlemen
joining us today and participating in this panel, and for the
effort that you and your associates have exerted to prepare the
statements that you have submitted.
And as you know, we would invite you to summarize those, in
approximately 5 minutes, beginning with Mr. Hendricks.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS L. HENDRICKS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR
SAFETY, SECURITY AND OPERATIONS, AIRLINES FOR AMERICA; SCOTT
FOOSE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS AND SAFETY, REGIONAL
AIRLINE ASSOCIATION; CAPTAIN SEAN CASSIDY, FIRST VICE
PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL; AND GARY
M. FORTNER, VICE PRESIDENT OF QUALITY CONTROL AND ENGINEERING,
FORTNER ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE
AERONAUTICAL REPAIR STATION ASSOCIATION
Mr. Hendricks. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member Costello,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting A4A to
appear at this important and timely hearing. At the outset, I
want to express our thanks to the committee for its leadership
in aviation safety and its support of the initiatives that I
will discuss this morning, many of which were addressed in the
recently enacted FAA Modernization Reform Act of 2012.
Of course, we also appreciate the efforts of the Federal
Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety
Board. Safety underpins every aspect of airline operations. The
remarkable safety record of airlines that are members of A4A,
demonstrates their unflagging commitment to fulfilling that
responsibility. As a former airline captain I have repeatedly
witnessed that commitment.
The results are extraordinary. This is the safest era in
our history. We are the safest form of transportation on the
planet, bar none. This safety record is neither random nor
unintended. We have achieved levels of aviation safety that
other industries and foreign civil aviation authorities envy.
While our commitment to safety is unchanging, the way we pursue
safety has evolved and transformed over time as our
understanding of human factors has grown, technology has
advanced and our ability to capture and utilize data has
expanded. This transformation has been indispensable in
producing our extraordinary safety record. In simplest terms,
we operate at a higher level of safety because we have become
much better at identifying and managing risk.
We haven't conquered risk. No one can promise that in
aviation, but airlines have introduced throughout their
operations very potent data-driven risk assessment systems.
These systems are tailored to an airline's operations. However,
there is a common methodology to them. Hazards are identified
and rigorously analyzed, and risk mitigation measures are
carefully thought out and implemented.
Risk assessment has been used in aviation for many years.
What has changed since the 1990s is the volume and
accessibility of operational data that can be applied to safety
issues. Airline safety professionals work in an information-
rich environment. That means that we now rely on data-driven
analysis, which frequently involves the combined scrutiny of
the FAA, employees and management. This yields a high-
definition picture, if you will, of operating environments and
transient events and thus more refined risk assessments. And as
the subcommittee knows, some of the most effective of these
safety data programs are voluntary. They are very tangible
manifestations of the industry's willingness to explore new
means and develop new relationships within the aviation
community to improve safety.
In short, a cultural shift has occurred that promotes and
enables a higher level of safety. Data-based programs enable us
to identify emerging patterns and properly deploy focused
resources, and when that action is taken also has changed over
the years. Today, unlike in past decades, there has been
increasing emphasis on initiating change rather than simply
reacting to events. That is proactive safety. This disciplined
approach, going where the data take us and acting accordingly,
has significantly advanced safety. It produces the most
responsive and effective results, and it facilitates the most
efficient deployment of finite resources in making necessary
changes. That discipline gives us the confidence to undertake
change when warranted, but it also gives us the ability to
recognize when change is uncalled for and to challenge
assumptions no matter how widely they may be embraced. Not
every new idea is an improvement or free from unintended
consequences.
The FAA's proposed rule on pilot certification and
qualification requirements, for example, concerns us for these
reasons.
I want to inject some words of caution. All who are
involved in aviation safety need to realize the importance of
sticking to the disciplined approach that I have outlined. We
must resist the temptation to tinker with the safety system
lest we disturb what we have accomplished and the benefits of
that to our passengers and crewmembers.
Expertise and rigor should guide us. Going forward, we have
the tools to foster safety enhancements. That is because
today's airline safety culture in the United States is
characterized by, first, a common understanding that safety is
the foundation of our business, second, robust communication
within airlines, including with employees and among industry
and Government stakeholders based on mutual trust, and finally,
a recognition that safety issue precursors can be identified
and effective preventative actions taken.
When we look beyond our borders, the situation appears more
mixed. Many foreign airlines and civil aviation authorities
have adopted data-driven approaches to safety. The maturity of
those systems, however, can vary. Because of that we urge the
U.S. Government to continue its efforts at the International
Civil Aviation Organization and in other venues to expand use
of safety data systems worldwide. This advocacy helps not only
foreign airlines, but also American citizens who fly on them.
We look forward to continuing to work with the subcommittee
on these matters, and I would be happy to answer any questions
you might have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Foose.
Mr. Foose. Good morning. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member
Costello, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
invitation to testify at this hearing. Three years ago RAA
testified before your committee after a fatal accident in order
to discuss our members' commitment to safety. At that time, we
outlined several important safety initiatives already in place.
We shared our plans to go even further. Today I am here to talk
to you about what we have been doing since then.
While our safety work has been both broad and deep and is
discussed more fully in our written statement, I will focus my
testimony on four areas in particular: Safety information
sharing, voluntary safety programs, pilot fatigue, first
officer qualifications.
All of our members participate in safety committees
established by code-sharing airline families. They are also
active participants in the InfoShare Program cosponsored by the
FAA and the airlines. In fact, at our recent InfoShare meetings
half of the attendees and briefings were from regional
airlines. Safety information is being shared by many means that
now transcend many boundaries. Regional airlines are not only
committed participants, but they are also taking leadership
roles.
RAA members have been also active, achieved extremely high
participation levels, in a list of gold standard voluntary
safety programs. In fact, RAA members have the highest levels
of participation among all of part 121 carriers in each of the
key FAA-supported voluntary safety programs, including ASAP,
FOQA, AQP and safety management systems.
The majority of carriers transitioning to advance
qualification programs for pilot training were regionals. While
carriers of small fleets cannot be expected to participate in
AQP, RAA's members have made the transition in significant
numbers. While 25 percent of all 121 carriers trained their
pilots under AQP, 66 percent of RAA members have that program.
Also, the large majority of RAA's part 121 members have
flight operations quality assurance programs in place. This is
all the more impressive knowing that RAA's members have
significant data collection equipment obstacles to overcome in
order to participate.
I want to express my appreciation to our pilots and air
associations. They have been key partners and share the credit
in this accomplishment.
Another significant milestone for the airline industry was
marked when the flight and duty time final rule was published
in December. For the first time we will use science to avoid
and mitigate fatigue in the cockpit. In 2009, industry
recognized there was a gap in the available science with regard
to workload fatigue. RAA took action, initiating an independent
ground-breaking research study to fill this gap. The goal of
this study is simple. We want to better understand the
fatiguing effects of multisegment operations on pilots so we
can incorporate what we have learned into our training, our
procedures, and our culture. RAA has taken a leading role in
fatigue research and will continue to work hard to ensure the
highest levels of safety in this area.
Finally, I would like to briefly discuss the proposed pilot
qualifications rule. But first I want to address a recent
allegation that regional airlines have no plan in place to
comply. This is far from the case. In fact, RAA members have
been very busy developing their transition programs. Several
programs have been approved and members have begun to
transition their first officers. We are preparing our public
comments in which we will urge the FAA to consider the valuable
conclusions reached by the First Officer Qualifications
Aviation Rulemaking Committee in formulating the rule. We also
express our concern that unless the new rule recognizes the
value and experience that structured training programs provide,
the burden will now shift to tomorrow's pilots.
The implication here is not diminished safety, but
diminished incentive for students to pursue training and
diminished service to smaller communities. The potential
availability of new pilots could jeopardize scheduled service
to dozens of communities. It is estimated that an annual
shortfall of approximately 2,300 pilots could translate to a
loss of service to 75 communities. If we do not take advantage
of this opportunity, we will be encouraging the next generation
of pilots to merely build hours, when what we really need is
experience in our cockpits.
In the 3 years since we last testified before this
committee, our 60,000 regional airline employees have operated
nearly 15 million flights at a pace of 13,000 flights each day.
In fact, today is the safest period of time in commercial
history. It is our hope that our deeds which have gone well
beyond the rules demonstrate to you, to each of the passengers
that we are fully committed to safe operation of each and every
flight each day.
This concludes my statement. I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Captain Cassidy.
Mr. Cassidy. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Costello, and members of the subcommittee. I am Captain Sean
Cassidy, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots
Association, International, and I am also its national safety
coordinator. I represent more than 53,000 professional airline
pilots who fly for 37 airlines both in the United States and
Canada. ALPA is not only the world's largest pilot union, We
are also the world's largest nongovernmental aviation safety
organization. I am honored to be here and would like to offer
our perspective on where the U.S. airline industry stands,
where we need to go in four critical areas of aviation safety.
First, although ALPA believes our industry has made good
progress in taking on pilot fatigue, critical work remains to
be done to achieve one level of safety for all airline
operations, a concept that has formed the foundation of ALPA's
safety work for many years. All pilots are human and we
experience fatigue in the same way regardless of whether we are
passengers or we have cargo in our aircraft. Despite this, new
science-based fatigue regulations apply only to pilots who fly
passengers and not those who fly cargo. Leaving all cargo
pilots out of the regulations is a serious safety concern.
ALPA thanks your colleagues, Representative Chip Cravaack
and Representative Tim Bishop, for introducing the Safe Skies
Act of 2012, which would apply the fatigue rules to all airline
operations. We urge all members of this committee to cosponsor
H.R. 4350 and to swiftly report out the Safe Skies Act of 2012
to help achieve one level of safety across the industry.
I would also like to applaud the families from Colgan 3407
who not only have been staunch supporters for H.R. 5900, but
also the Safe Skies Act as well.
Second, the screening, selection, training, qualification,
and continued professional development of a pilot are also key
components of maintaining the highest levels of safety. While
ALPA is encouraged by the rulemaking proposals both for
revising training standards and requirements for new first
officers and for implementing safety management systems at
airlines, the job is clearly not finished. Of particular
concern to airline pilots is the new regulations which seek to
ensure that relevant experiences obtained before pilots begin
airline service, they must not set the stage for unintended
consequences of rendering an active airline line pilot suddenly
ineligible to continue his or her employment. Fairness and
common sense dictate that efforts to ensure relevant experience
should not inadvertently take that experience out of the
cockpit.
New regulations must include a clear path to follow so
currently employed airline pilots can continue to fly and are
able to achieve full compliance with requirements that were
created after their employment began. In addition, ALPA has
long emphasized the value of professional development, command
training, and mentoring. As the U.S. airline industry has
evolved, opportunities have diminished for new pilots to gain
experience through years of flying under the command of more
seasoned aviators. As a result, the mentoring command training
of professional development that once occurred organically must
be replaced with formal mechanisms to develop these skills.
In the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration
Act of 2010, Congress rightly identified the need for airlines
to provide specific command training courses for new captains.
We advocate that new captains receive training to reinforce
effective communication, leadership, and conflict resolution.
On a related issue, while mentoring does not replace
proficiency training, it provides an excellent supplement to
it. While informal mentoring can often take place if an airline
safety culture fosters the opportunity, mentoring should also
be formalized as a standard part of a pilot's professional
development. In all of these areas, mentoring, leadership, and
professional development, the changes will take time to fully
implement and mature. Our industry must act now to make these
enhancements a reality.
Third, safety management systems which provide the NextGen
blueprint for aviation safety, both on the ground and in the
air, have already proven to be extremely effective as
demonstrated by our Canadian neighbors. A key principle of SMS
is to all members of an organization to identify hazards
without fear of retribution. The ability to capitalize on
frontline employees' firsthand knowledge is a critical element
in maintaining safest possible operations. ALPA is encouraged
that the Federal Aviation Administration appears to be on
schedule to publish a final SMS rule this summer.
Finally, and especially important in the context of SMS is
the absolute priority that our industry must place on the
protection of safety data. The proven success of voluntary
safety programs hinges on the strength of the data collected.
Individuals provide this data based on the expectation that he
or she will be respected as acting to enhance safety and that
information will not be misused. Legislation should be
considered to make certain this information is only used as
intended and that is to advance safety.
The pilots of ALPA commend the U.S. Aviation House
Subcommittee for holding this hearing and allowing us to
underscore the importance of continuing to pursue the highest
standards in safe air transportation. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Captain. Mr. Fortner.
Mr. Fortner. Thank you. Chairman Petri, Ranking Member
Costello, and members of the subcommittee, I thank you for the
invitation to testify this morning.
Incorporated in 1952, Fortner Engineering is a third-
generation family-owned company with 45 workers. My company is
an FAA certificated repair station that specializes in the
repair and overhaul of hydraulic aircraft components. I am
testifying in my capacity as the senior vice president of the
Aeronautical Repair Association, also known as ARSA. The
efforts of ARSA's members facilitate the safe operation of
aircraft worldwide by providing expert maintenance services for
general and commercial aircraft. Overall, these services
generate over $39 billion of economic activity in the United
States and employ more than 274,000 workers in all 50 States.
North America is a major net exporter of aviation
maintenance services, enjoying a $2.4 billion positive trail
balance of trade. I would like to use my time this morning to
highlight four main points: First, for ARSA members around the
world, good safety is good business. The basic nature of the
aviation industry demands that safety and security be the top
priority for our member companies. Operators and airlines will
not do business with companies that put their passengers and
valuable business assets at risk.
Aviation safety does not begin and end with the FAA or any
other regulatory body. Safety is the responsibility of every
aviation maintenance employee performing work on behalf of an
owner or operator, a certificated repair station, air carrier,
or other aviation business. Government inspectors will never be
able to oversee each mechanic at every facility at all times.
The industry has the ultimate obligation, responsibility, and
authority to ensure that the civil aviation system is safe and
repair stations are filling that responsibility despite the
FAA's limited oversight resources.
My second point is that foreign repair stations are an
essential element of the global aviation system to help ensure
the safety of travelers worldwide. FAA certificated foreign
repair stations are subject to the same safety centers as FAA
domestic part 145 certificate holders. The International
Convention of Civil Aviation of 1944 and ICAO standards require
that the country in which the aircraft is registered oversee
the maintenance performed on that aircraft and all related
components regardless of whether work was performed.
Consequently, maintenance on a U.S. registered aircraft must be
performed by an FAA certificated maintenance provider.
Similarly, when an aircraft of foreign registry requires
maintenance, only a repair station certificated or validated by
that aircraft's civil aviation authority or registry may
perform that work.
As far as other countries are concerned, U.S. repair
stations are also foreign repair stations. My company has an
EASA approval that allows us to perform work for EU registered
aircraft. Consequently, Fortner Engineering has to ensure
comply not only with the civil aviation authority of this
country, but additional and different requirements of EASA. Any
efforts to limit the ability of U.S. carriers to use foreign
repair stations will inevitably lead to retaliation from
foreign governments that will hurt hundreds of U.S. companies
like mine that serve an international clientele.
Thirdly, the long-term threat to the aviation maintenance
industry is over-regulation and Government intrusion. Vision
100, an FAA reauthorization law enacted in 2003, required the
TSA to issue security rules for all aviation repair stations by
August 2004. When TSA failed to meet that deadline, lawmakers
demanded that security regulations be completed by August of
2008. The penalty for failure to comply was the FAA would be
prohibited from issuing new foreign repair station
certificates.
Nearly 4 years later, the TSA has still failed to issue
final repair station security regulations, and the FAA is
currently banned from issuing new foreign repair station
certificates. TSA's failure to finalize repair station security
rules is preventing aviation companies from tapping into
rapidly expanding overseas markets, hindering job creation and
growth at home.
My final point is that the lack of standardization across
FAA regional offices can significantly impact repair stations
across the country. A situation of Fortner Engineering detailed
in my written testimony demonstrates how overzealous regulators
and inconsistent application of regulations impede repair
stations with no benefit to flight safety.
ARSA members are routinely plagued by FAA's widespread
varying application of regulations across the country.
Inconsistent interpretation and enforcement is frequently cited
by ARSA members as a major problem and small businesses are
particularly impacted by a lack of regulatory standardization
across regions.
In conclusion, repair stations have long been and continue
to be a vital part of the aviation industry in our Nation's
economy. It is no coincidence that the increased use of
contract maintenance has coincided with the safest period in
commercial aviation history. In the end, no governmental agency
can guarantee aviation safety. Safety is a business of aviation
industry companies and their employees. ARSA looks forward to
working with Congress to ensure that legislation and
regulations are based on our one common goal, safety.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Thank you all again. Mr. Hendricks,
in your prepared statement, you talked about some of the modern
techniques for analyzing data and improvements that were being
made, and you cautioned against, quote/unquote, ``tinkering''
with the safety system. And we are always looking for
improvements, but we are not looking for mindless tinkering. I
guess--so could you discuss what it is that you would fear from
what--expand on the word ``tinkering'' and the consequences of
that?
Mr. Hendricks. Sure. Certainly. As I tried to reflect in my
statement, the results we have been able to achieve are
extraordinary and unprecedented and we have largely done this
through these very robust voluntary reporting mechanisms that
are very much a partnership between airlines, our regulator the
FAA, and our employees, and it provides us with an amount of
data that 10 years ago was unthinkable. We are able to do very
deep analysis of this data that has been protected by the
Congress from intrusion, and we are able to do analysis that
frankly is very deep, and very compelling in terms of what
actions we should take to enable further improvements in
safety.
I sit on the executive committee of the Commercial Aviation
Safety Team which Ms. Gilligan co-chairs with Mr, Ken Hylander
from Delta Airlines, and we routinely participate in directed
studies, look at safety threats. We go where the data take us.
And we are convinced that this path we are on will lead to
further improvements and is the correct path to assure that we
will stay on this journey that we are taking to a phenomenally
safe system that we are currently operating.
So we want to ensure that we stay true to the data, and
while we will always try to determine ways to improve the
system further, we want to ensure that we make any of those
decisions grounded on these facts that we are able to uncover
through this intense and very focused analysis of the data that
we are receiving.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Foose, I think I know the answer
to this, but in your testimony you talked about how you had to
take into account experience versus flight hours.
Mr. Foose. Correct.
Mr. Petri. And could you explain what you--and so not just
looking for hours. I suspect you are talking about the number
of maneuvers you are doing, rather than just flying, well, it
is on auto pilot hours, but could you expand on that?
Mr. Foose. That is correct. The proposed pilot
certification rule focuses on two areas I wanted to talk about.
One is the additional training that is required, and we support
that. We think there is lots of good steps that are proposed in
there that actually in many ways have already been incorporated
into our training programs. Our biggest concern is that the--we
know that the Public Law of course requires 1,500 hours and an
ATP. Our members have already taken a significant step forward
and will meet that. All of our pilots will meet that
requirement by August of 2013. But the FAA in their rulemaking
activity has proposed an academic system that accommodates only
4-year aviation degrees and also military as well, but our
experience with the airlines, and we obviously have lots of
experience, qualifying thousands and thousands of pilots that
are in service today and doing so very safely. And what that
experience tell us is that the quality of training is really
what tell us whether that pilot really will have the skills and
the knowledge to do his job appropriately. And when the time
comes and he is faced with an abnormal situation, he will be
better prepared to do that. The flight time does not
necessarily do that, and of course in our written testimony we
offered and example of how that occurs.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Captain Cassidy, one area of some
controversy has been the different treatment of freighter
pilots as opposed to passenger pilots, and we are told one
explanation is that cargo pilots--actually, the data shows
actually--fly significantly less than passenger pilots. Could
you comment on that? Does that difference, in fact, exist, or
do you know about anything about that?
Mr. Cassidy. Yes, sir. Well, scheduling differences exist
relative to the operation. You have long-haul cargo operations
that fly tremendous distance and extended crew days with
augmented crews and they fly intercontinental. You also have
cargo operations that fly stage links which are just sometimes
as little as 100 miles. So there is a tremendous variety of
flying that gets done both on passenger and in cargo
operations. I can speak to you from a little bit of a vantage
of somebody who has done both, because the airline I am
currently employed by, we actually have stand-alone cargo
operations as well as passenger operations. And I think the
important point is that with regard to crew fatigue issues,
with regard to the stressors that affect you, many times I have
actually had higher workload situations flying cargo operations
rather than passenger ones because of the lack of additional
crewmembers. You know, from my vantage as an airline pilot,
fatigue is fatigue is fatigue. I know a little bit about it, as
does Congressman Cravaack, who we both share a background both
in military, passenger, and cargo operations, and I honestly
cannot distinguish why there should be a difference in the way
that you are treated based upon what resides behind the flight
deck door.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Costello.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Foose, you have
testified that the regional airlines are making a lot of
progress in developing plans to implement the ATP requirement,
although the Inspector General, you have heard his testimony
that their investigators visited two regional carriers and
found out that 75 percent of their first officers do not have
ATP certificates.
Mr. Foose. Correct.
Mr. Costello. And they also found out that in both cases
that neither carrier had developed a plan to ensure that the
first officers would meet the ATP requirement by the deadline
of August 2013.
So my question is, how many of your carrier members have
developed a plan to ensure that the first officer meets the ATP
certificates and will be able to meet the enhanced safety
requirements by August of 2013?
Mr. Foose. Excuse me, that is a good question and thank you
for that. I am not sure which carriers they spoke to. In my
conversations with our operations executive of carriers, we, as
far as I know, all the carriers have either developed a plan or
have completed development and submitted that to the FAA
office. At this point in time, we have three carriers that have
approved programs, and they have begun to transition their
first officers.
Given the August 2013 deadline, we would expect that all
airlines will have their programs approved and in place and
being executed as of July or August of this year. At that point
all of the pilots should be--start the program, be complete by
August of 2013.
Mr. Costello. So three carriers have approved plans?
Mr. Foose. Correct.
Mr. Costello. And how many members do you have in your
association?
Mr. Foose. Twenty-seven, 24 of which are part 121 carriers.
Mr. Costello. So 3 of the 27 have approved plans.
Mr. Foose. That is correct.
Mr. Costello. Let me ask you. Is Pinnacle one of those
companies, which of course is the parent company for Colgan
Air?
Mr. Foose. Yes.
Mr. Costello. And they are one of your members and do they
have an approved plan?
Mr. Foose. I do not know that, sir. I can get back to you
on that.
Mr. Costello. Why wouldn't you know that? Why wouldn't you
know--if you have 27 members and you were coming here today,
why wouldn't you have found out from your members which ones
have approved plans, which ones do not, and which ones do not
have even a plan in place?
Mr. Foose. That is a good question. I, as of last week,
when we polled our members we had three approved, but I do not
know. I have not talked to Pinnacle since then, so I don't know
if they have been approved since.
Mr. Costello. How long would it take you to get a list to
this subcommittee of the 27 members, how many have plans in
place right now?
Mr. Foose. We could do that very quickly, sir.
Mr. Costello. Well, I would request that you would submit
that to us as soon as possible.
Mr. Foose. I would be glad to do that.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Costello. Captain Cassidy, you have heard the regionals
say that the proposed rule for pilot qualifications could
affect the supply of airline pilots. You have heard that
previously and that is the position of the regionals. How do
you respond to that?
Mr. Cassidy. Our association's motto is: Schedule with
safety. And I think the determinant on whether or not there is
going to be an excess amount of eligible pilots to fill the
flight decks in the commercial aircraft is really dependent on
the industry's efforts to recruit, attract, and retain
qualified pilots. I think that taking one step beyond that,
regardless if there exists a paucity or a surplus of pilots, I
think that our core concern is ensuring that they are as well-
trained, as safe, as experienced, and as proficient as
possible, which is why we are so much in favor of the recent
legislation helping with mentoring leadership, and as well as
stepped-up hourly qualifications.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Graves, do you have--oh, Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Captain
Cassidy, you said you have serious safety concerns with this
new ruling, and again, based upon the evidence that has been
put forth over the last several years, cargo has been extremely
safe, and in fact there has been no increase with incidents
with fatigue. You know, so where is the concern there if you
have got an industry that continues to improve?
Mr. Cassidy. You are correct, sir. The industry--we have--
basically, I have the pleasure of working in the transportation
system, which is the safest in the history of the world for the
last 10 years, and the previous 10 years preceding that was the
next safest era of operations. So in one respect, this is a
very high-class problem to have because we are talking about a
very, very safe system or an even safer one.
Now, with regard to fatigue issues and cargo, I think that
those same issues that would serve as precursors for higher
safety risk for cargo are identical to passenger situation. And
I think we are just looking at the tip of the iceberg because
we are now finally getting into scientifically based data
collection which really determines the precursors to fatigue in
a way that we have not done in years past.
I was sitting right next to Secretary LaHood on December
21st when he made the announcement of the flight-time/duty-time
regulation, and although cargo was placed in a different
category than passenger operations under part 117, you know, I
think I was pretty clear when I heard him say very emphatically
that even that cargo is not regulated on the side of 117 with
the passengers, nevertheless it is absolutely the right thing
to do.
Mr. Shuster. Well, look, I agree 100 percent with the
passenger side of it, but, you know, you made the comment that
you shouldn't be treated differently because of what is behind
the flight deck door. But in reality, it is not just about what
the cargo is, whether it is with passengers or if it is cargo,
it is the operations are significantly different, the hours
that the pilots are flying are significantly different. And so
I believe fully that that is the difference. And would you
agree that the facilities for cargo--or let me ask you this
way. Are the facilities on the plane, or on the ground, are
they the same for passenger as they are for cargo, or is there
a difference?
Mr. Cassidy. There is different rest facilities that are
provided on planes that help to give crews the prescribed rest
and augmented rest and they really vary pretty dramatically
from completely separated cabins that only the flight crew can
access to basically a seat back with the passengers. So there
is a tremendous variety. Cargo as well.
Mr. Shuster. Cargo and passenger, is cargo significantly
different facilities than with passenger?
Mr. Foose. I think that in many cases the answer is yes. As
Ms. Gilligan referred to before, you know, I think we can use
like FedEx or one of the big long-haul cargo carriers as an
example where they actually have separate rest facilities so
the crews can go in and get prescribed rest while they are
doing the sort function.
Mr. Shuster. But what about the number of hours flown. Is
that a significant difference in fatigue, where you have
roughly 30 hours where a cargo pilot on average is flying and
over 50 a passenger. Does that have a significant difference in
a fatigue? Would you agree with that, or not?
Mr. Cassidy. It is a difficult question to answer because
of the tremendous complexity and scale of the different
operations. You can have somebody who only flew 30-40 hours
during that month and be placed in a situation where they are
more fatigued than somebody who flew 70 because of the way that
the crew rest matrix works and prescribed rest requirements.
Mr. Shuster. All right. Well, that brings me down to if we
want to do one-size-fits-all, then we are going to get to some
point I believe if we continue down this road where we are
going to have to look at the individual. I know Sam Graves is a
pilot and I know Mr. Cravaack is a pilot, and maybe he operates
well on 6 hours of sleep and Mr. Cravaack needs 8 or 10 hours.
We are going to get to a level where--is that where we are
headed? I have been dealing with this sleep issue, whether it
is for the railroads or truck drivers. It really comes down to
the individual, how an individual operates and if those people
are getting the right amount of rest. I mean, we are going to
end up having sleep or rest police or cameras in your room.
So, again, I just disagree fundamentally that these are two
different operations. And fatigue is fatigue, but fatigue for
Mr. Graves and fatigue for Mr. Cravaack ends up at a different
threshold. So I think we really have to look at cargo and
passenger differently and, again, look at what is available to
the cargo passengers. Again, you have said a couple of things
that I have asked you. The facilities are different, the flight
duty is different for the different industries.
So I know you are not agreeing with me, but you sound like
you are agreeing with some of the principles that I have come
to believe with, and that is why I have come to the difference.
Is that accurate?
Mr. Cassidy. Well, I agree fatigue is fatigue is fatigue
regardless of who we are discussing. I also think that the
regulation is very sane and safe in that it provides me, if I
have a trip, you know, flying a passenger trip, multiple legs,
I have the assurance that when I shut that hotel room door that
I have 8 hours of prescribed rest time, period.
And the other thing which I think is important to
emphasize, you know, I have the privilege of representing both
cargo pilots as well as passenger pilots at the Air Line Pilots
Association, and I have a tremendous amount of faith in every
single one of those members' ability to ensure that they are
adequately fit and rested to fly regardless of what the
regulation says, because the other notable achievement with
some of this new regs is that it empowers companies to ensure
that crewmembers are put in a situation where they can
determine that they are fit to fly and not face any
disciplinary issues if they identify, for whatever reason, the
ice maker next door, the hotel elevator going up and down, that
for whatever reason they just are not in a position where they
feel safe to fly because of fatigue issues.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Chairman, I have one more question. I
wonder if I might ask it and I will also address it to Mr.
Cassidy and Mr. Hendricks.
Mr. Hendricks, you are a former airline pilot, is that
accurate?
Mr. Hendricks. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Shuster. The new regs, the new rule, limits the number
of consecutive nights that a pilot may fly to 3 nights. Is that
your understanding? That would be for passengers?
Mr. Hendricks. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shuster. Would that force the carriers into scheduling
greater numbers of shorter rotations for pilots?
Mr. Cassidy. It might, and it really depends on the system
operations for the airline. For instance, I fly for Alaska
Airlines. Once upon a time we predominantly flew up and down
the West Coast. Now we do a lot more transcontinental
operations as well. So when you look at the complexity of a
scheduling operation, a lot of times they can have mitigating
strategies which allow them to best utilize a crewmember so it
doesn't really affect efficiency that much of the operation by
scheduling practices.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Hendricks?
Mr. Hendricks. Congressman, A4A has engaged a group of
leading sleep scientists to help answer these types of
questions, and we thank you for posing it today.
We will say that with regard to the consecutive nights of
operation, many times that will in fact impose more fatigue on
pilots, because flying on the back side of the clock, if you
are a cargo pilot or you are a long-haul international pilot,
that first night is the most challenging in terms of managing
your alertness, and we want to limit the amount of first nights
of flying that this rule may impose upon the system. So we are
studying that more closely, and we do have some concerns in
that regard.
Mr. Shuster. So quite possibly applying this new FAA rule
to cargo could make it less safe for cargo pilots, if you are
going to increase the number of first night flights. Would that
be a concern?
Mr. Hendricks. Well, I would agree with Captain Cassidy
that our crewmembers are all highly professional. We rely on
them to make assessments of themselves and their fitness to
fly. And along the lines that Captain Cassidy also mentioned,
most airlines have completely non-punitive policies in place
when pilots exercise their prerogative to say that they are too
fatigued to operate the aircraft. So we support that. There is
still more study that is required, but we are concerned about
the increased exposure that pilots may have to this first night
of night flying.
Mr. Shuster. Well, I appreciate all four of you being here,
especially Captain Cassidy and Mr. Hendricks. And thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for indulging me. I think this is an issue that
we have got to continue to look at. As I said, I want to make
sure. Across this Government we do one-size-fits-all in far too
many things, and I just don't think, and in this case there is
evidence, significant evidence, that says we have to look at
this a little differently. So I appreciate your being here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Chairman
Petri and Ranking Member Costello for your leadership and for
holding this morning's oversight hearing on safety. We all know
that America has the aviation system that is the finest and
safest in the world, but while we have an impressive safety
record, we know that errors do happen in rare instances and the
consequences are often very severe.
I have Midway Airport in my district, also close to
Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and I know that safety has to be our
top priority.
So I really just wanted to follow up a little bit on what
Chairman Petri's original question, first question was with Mr.
Hendricks. I in a previous time before I was in Congress did
systems analysis. I worked for Swiss Air, although I didn't do
this kind of risk assessments there.
But I was just wondering, Mr. Hendricks, you talked about
in your answer to Mr. Petri and your testimony about data. We
know that data is the core of safety. I just wanted to get a
better sense of what kind of data are we talking about? What do
you look at in your risk assessment?
Mr. Hendricks. Thank you very much. Many different types of
data. We have a flight ops quality assurance program. It is
actually a separate digital recorder on the aircraft that
records parameters different than the digital flight data
recorder in many cases.
We have voluntary reporting systems that our pilots provide
us, not only pilots, air traffic controllers in the ATSAP
program. Some airlines have implemented this with the
professionals that plan the loads on the aircraft. And we take
into account also the surveillance data from our radars, from
ADSB in some cases. And all of this is collected and fused by
the MITRE Corporation, which operates under this umbrella of
protection that the Congress has granted us to do a de-
identified, deep dive into all of this data, not specific
instances, but looking for systemic risk. And that is where we
have been able to achieve success, because the data is
protected, it is rich, and it has proven to be very reliable in
terms of what it is telling us and what mitigations we can then
put in place to address what we are seeing in the data.
Mr. Lipinski. Are there any examples that you can give
about things that have been learned?
Mr. Hendricks. Well, certainly. The Commercial Aviation
Safety Team has had numerous directed studies. In fact, 3 years
ago they were awarded the Collier Trophy. As you know, it is
one of the most distinguished aviation awards in the United
States because of this work.
So they have done directed studies on control flight and
terrain. We are currently looking at navigating on the runway
into the area navigation, NextGen type procedures on departure.
We are looking at other systems such as upset prevention.
What we have been allowed to do, because we brought down
the fatal accident rate to such a low level right now, is we
are able to look at other things we simply didn't have the
luxury of looking at because there were other pressing matters.
But I would like to reemphasize the points I made earlier,
which are the data is guiding us on what we should look at. We
have a very formal process on the Commercial Aviation Safety
Team to identify these risks, and then we focus our resources
in these directed studies to go out and mitigate those risks
throughout the system. The FAA is providing great leadership in
this regard.
Mr. Lipinski. Do you do any international sharing of data
or findings?
Mr. Hendricks. That is expanding currently. We are in
dialogue with the European equivalent of the Commercial
Aviation Safety Team. There are regional aviation groups
throughout the world. One of the newer ones and more robust
safety systems is in the Latin American region.
I was just last week at a Latin American operations
conference and the results they are seeing are pretty
phenomenal. They have a very young fleet. They are collecting
this data. We are showing them the way in many regards and we
are learning things that when we operate in that region that
perhaps we didn't see because we didn't have as much data. So
we are starting down that path. We need to ensure that we
protect that data as well as we do in the United States. But
other regions of the world are starting to see that this is the
path forward for success.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Cravaack.
Mr. Cravaack. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate everybody
being here today because everybody here is on the same page. We
all want safe flights, safe airlines, to be able to get our
passengers to and from where they want to go as safely as
possible and bring cargo to the places that really need it. In
some ports even in our own country we have to rely on cargo
aircraft to just bring the sustenance to some different cities.
So we are all working on the same page, let's just put it like
that.
Captain Cassidy, if I could just talk--I wish my colleague
was still here in regards to hear some of this testimony you
are about to give here. The studies that were done were data-
based studies, correct?
Mr. Cassidy. Correct.
Mr. Cravaack. I mean, they took a look at a lot of--a
plethora of different fatigues that happen to a pilot on a
normal basis. The thing is we are not just talking about flight
times here. We are talking about crossing time zones, going
from JFK to Tokyo and being on the back side of the clock, your
circadian rhythm is completely maladjusted, and then being on a
12-day trip and coming back home. So one of the things that we
want to talk about when you talk about when cargo guys do that,
long-haul cargo guys, we want to make sure that they get the
proper rest and ensuring that occurs.
Now, one of the things that my colleague brought up to me,
and he says well, you know, cargo guys, they can rest while the
aircraft is being--you are smiling--you know, pilots can rest 4
hours while cargo is being taken off and placed back on. I was
a wrench on a flight on a 747 and I can guarantee you that
while that cargo was going off and on, I wasn't resting. I was
making sure where the cargo was going, making sure it was tied
down correctly, preflight planning.
When you talk about flight time, it is when the cockpit
door is shut and when the cockpit door opens again. It doesn't
account for the preflight of the aircraft, the flight planning
and things like that. I wanted to make sure they brought that
up as well.
So, you know, in understanding the effect, can you please
describe to me why fatigue in your opinion as a professional
pilot is so dangerous to aviation?
Mr. Cassidy. Well, thank you for that question, and I
appreciate the leadup to that. I think that the reason fatigue
is is because it affects every bit of our function, our ability
to process information, our cognitive function, our judgment,
our ability to execute a critical, timely--make critical and
timely choices, especially when you get faced with abnormal
situations.
Now, fortunately, 99 percent of the time that we are flying
we don't get placed in a situation where you have to react in a
nanosecond. However, there are times, both on the ground and in
the air, I think it has been pointed out very clearly that a
lot of our concern, risk factors, exist with runway incursions,
excursions, ground-ops as well, and you have to be on your
game. And unfortunately, discussing--you know, having a
prescribed rest facility while they are doing the cargo
operation, there is a couple of issues at play.
First of all is just the responsibility, especially the
pilot command, to make sure the load is done properly, center
of gravity, that you understand what the manifest of goods are
on the airplane, hazardous materials, et cetera, et cetera. But
even if you did have that rest facility, if your body clock was
such that it just was telling itself it is just simply not time
to sleep, you may be in that rest facility but you will
probably be staring at the ceiling for 4 hours just begging
your body to sleep, otherwise known as window of circadian high
and low. Your body travels in certain sleep cycles. Data speaks
to the fact that a prescribed matrix which takes into account
your start time for the day, the finish time for the day, the
number of time zones that you skip, and as well as the number
of operations that you have, are all very important in
factoring in what the safest, sanest way to deal with rest
requirements are.
Mr. Cravaack. Thank you, Captain.
Mr. Fortner, I am sorry, did I say that correctly? I am an
old wrench on a 747 and coming out of Singapore on our way to
Bangkok we had a number four engine fire uncontrollable, and
the reason why is because the mechanic in Singapore put a wrong
starter on the engine. Foreign repair facilities are a big
concern of mine to make sure that we have proper maintenance
going on in foreign repair facilities.
What is your main comment on that and making sure that we
have the right mechanics doing the right things?
Mr. Fortner. Well, when it comes to an end registered
aircraft, a U.S. registered aircraft, regardless of where the
maintenance is being done, it is being done with the same
rules, regulations, maintenance practices and data no matter
where it is at. So along the lines of the differencesbetween a
foreign and domestic repair station, there should not be any
difference.
Mr. Cravaack. Who makes sure, I know I am over, but who
makes sure that that is in fact occurring? Who is spot
checking? The people that are spot checking, do they have the
people available to ensure that that occurs?
Mr. Fortner. Again, being just a simple small U.S. domestic
repair station, I am speaking a little bit out of my full realm
of knowledge. But that being said, I do have full faith that
with the training that is being done over there and that is
required by U.S. law, that they undergo the same training that
we do here. The oversight is the same.
That is not to say that maintenance mistakes don't happen,
but I don't believe that they are any more likely here versus
there. That is part of the reason why we have so many
redundancies and checks.
Mr. Cravaack. OK. Great. Super. I appreciate that
testimony. Thank you very much. I appreciate the chair's
indulgence, and I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Lankford.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you. I actually want to pick up on what
Chip Cravaack was just talking about just now about foreign
repair stations as well.
What percentage do you think, and anyone can answer this,
but obviously, Mr. Fortner, I think this would be closer to the
center of your wheelhouse on it. What percentage do you think
of maintenance that we have, that is scheduled maintenance, not
just a, hey, the aircraft is parked here for a few minutes.
Let's check this out while we are here transition. We have got
a problem before we before we take the next leg scheduled,
maintenance and repair is done internationally versus
domestically at this point for our domestic airlines?
Mr. Fortner. I will be honest with you, I really do not
have an answer to that question. It is beyond my scope of
knowledge.
Mr. Lankford. Does anyone have a perspective on that or a
guess?
Mr. Hendricks. Congressman, I am not sure I can answer
directly, but I can say that the example that Congressman
Cravaack gave about 747s, there are no facilities in the United
States that can perform heavy maintenance on 747s. We must take
these aircraft overseas to have this type of maintenance action
performed on them. These are very expensive capital assets that
our airlines own and they are very highly motivated to assure
that the quality of the repairs and the overhauls is very high.
Speaking about foreign repair station ratios, if you will,
I would say that it is a net positive trade balance with repair
stations, comparing what we bring into the U.S. compared to
what we conduct outside the U.S., to the tune of over $2
billion.
Mr. Lankford. Right, because of the sale of our aircraft,
the initial construction and sale of the aircraft going out now
obviously to be repaired. Why is it, why do we have, for
instance, no facilities domestically for the heavy-duty repair
for a 747?
Mr. Hendricks. I don't have a good answer for you. I am not
sure if it was economically driven or just facility driven. But
I can say based on my experience in the airline industry, the
quality of this work that is being done is very high and very
robust, and that is why airlines continue to do this.
Mr. Lankford. OK. Other comments on that? Mr. Fortner.
Mr. Fortner. Again, as purely a domestic repair station, I
would have to agree that when I go to other repair stations,
including some foreign ones, the equipment and facilities they
have over there and the training and personnel that I have seen
and talked to are on par with anything you would see here in
the United States.
Mr. Lankford. Mr. Fortner, in your testimony you had stated
that it has been 4 years since the TSA has given a final repair
station security regulation. Do you have any perspective on
why, what the delay is on getting that final regulation out
there?
Mr. Fortner. Sure. Actually it is only 4 since they were
actually mandated to do it with penalties to the FAA. It really
has been 9 years since they were first asked to do it. And,
again, I don't work for the TSA, but, again, from speaking with
the TSA, my feeling is that it is just a matter of priorities.
They were a new governmental agency tasked with a lot of
issues, and I think that----
Mr. Lankford. So 9 years is not enough time to get that
done?
Mr. Fortner. I think that they had--I think they had more
important things. And I agree with them. I honestly don't
believe that the issues that they are trying to solve are
there. It is really a solution looking for a problem. I mean,
most people, they look at a repair station, I think that most
public and probably much of Congress thinks of a repair station
as a place where you land an airplane and you pull it up to the
hangar and they do work on the airplane.
The reality is that most of the repair stations out there
are just like mine, which is I am 6 miles from the closest
airport. Everything comes to me via UPS and FedEx. The parts
come in. They fail on an airplane. They come in, we take them
apart, we evaluate them, repair them, put them back together,
test them and send them back.
So long lines of security for a facility like ours that has
45 employees, I don't think it is what Congress envisioned that
they were looking at when they mandated this rule. So, again, I
think the TSA simply had better things to do.
Mr. Lankford. OK. So your perception, again, obviously you
are not inside TSA, but your perception is they look at it and
say this is a silly rule. We have got other things. We will
just continue pushing this down.
Do you think it has any impact in the industry, in the
repair side, to not have that final rule out there? Just let us
do our business, we are going to do a good job?
Mr. Fortner. I think the only real impact is the fact that
you can apply for and receive a foreign repair station
certificate. It is kind of ironic that right now industry and
the association are pushing for a rule that we don't want, not
for the rule itself but to get rid of the penalties that have
been imposed.
Mr. Lankford. OK. So you can't get a foreign repair
certification, is that what you are saying right now, without
that?
Mr. Fortner. That is correct.
Mr. Lankford. But more than ever, we are doing repairs
internationally?
Mr. Fortner. Yes.
Mr. Lankford. But we just can't add new places. You have
preexisting. So basically this limits competition
internationally, that you can't add new places. The existing
ones just pay the penalty. How does that work?
Mr. Fortner. You cannot add existing foreign repair
stations, but the U.S. regulated certificated foreign repair
stations can continue to do business. Does that answer your
question?
Mr. Lankford. I think. Do you want to try to clarify that a
little more? So we are not adding new entities, we just have
the same existing ones.
Mr. Fortner. That is correct
Mr. Lankford. At this point. So if we had the rule, then we
can increase competition for this. If we don't add the rule,
then it stays as it is?
Mr. Fortner. Well, I think that competition is--you know it
is a global market right now.
Mr. Lankford. Sure.
Mr. Fortner. I think that I wouldn't--again, as a purely
domestic repair station, I don't look at this as competition as
much as equalizing the playing field for everybody. I think
that there is a lot of companies out there that are U.S. that
would like the ability to open a foreign repair station
facility, because there is a demand and there is a market for
it. That does not necessarily mean that you going to be taking
work from a domestic carrier here. There is just work over
there to be had.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Fortner, as long as you are here, before we adjourn, it
is my understanding that the U.S. repair station industry does
not have a high public visibility, but it does employ some
nearly 300,000, 275,000 people in the United States and
contributes nearly $40 billion a year to our economy.
We have been talking in this hearing about safety. How do
you strike the right balance or could you comment on any advice
on how we could strike the right balance between appropriate
safety regulations and oversight and over regulation that could
end up being detrimental to people who are employed by this
industry and who benefit from it?
Mr. Fortner. I think probably first and foremost, new
regulation are not always good and not always bad. The security
rule is a good example of one where it is not necessarily a bad
regulation as much as I think it is an unneeded regulation.
Personally, what I would prefer to see is more resources
put into what we already have, more inspectors, FAA inspectors
out there to be able to do their jobs. What we see more than
anything else is the lack of resources given to the people to
do their job currently. I think that is one of the biggest
issues that we face right now along the lines of safety and
security for the repair station side.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Costello has one comment.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Chairman, I really don't have a question,
but my friend from Oklahoma, in asking the question about
foreign repair stations, we have, members of this subcommittee
have visited a number of foreign repair stations as well as
domestic repair stations and my personal observation is some
are better than others. But one of the things that concerns me
the most is we had--when Mr. Sabatini testified before this
subcommittee a few years ago, I asked him the question, how
many safety inspectors do we have working at the FAA in all of
Asia and Europe to inspect the foreign repair stations? And he
said we had eight at the time. And I said how many repair
stations do we have? And he gave us the number of repair
stations. And I asked him the question, can you attest to the
fact that these inspectors actually physically go in and
inspect the repair stations once a year? And he said no. And I
said once every 2 or 3 years? And he said he couldn't really
tell us that.
So I would agree that we need to put more resources into
safety inspectors, both domestically and also internationally.
And I would also say to the gentleman from Oklahoma, as he
knows, because I think he has been to the American Airlines
repair facility, they run an excellent repair facility.
But the bottom line is the bottom line, and it comes down
to money. In many cases where if you have an airline, a
domestic airline in the United States flying empty airplanes to
San Salvador to have them repaired and to bring them back
empty, then you know that they are paying less to have them
repaired in San Salvador than they are in the United States. So
that is my personal conclusion.
But I would agree with you that we should have more
resources going to inspectors to make certain that we have the
highest level of inspections and safety, both at domestic and
international repair stations.
With that, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Lankford. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Costello. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. Lankford. And that is my concern as well. My question
was really about if there is something that we have done, as
you said, a regulation in search of a problem, if there is some
regulation that has been added, if there is some system that
has been put in place that is outdated and outmoded, that is
pushing this essential business overseas.
We do have an excellent maintenance facility in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, that deals with American Airlines. There are a lot of
great people that work there, that work very hard, are very
diligent and very particular about their aircraft. I am sure
there are people internationally that are also particular about
their aircraft as well. I am not doubting that, just to say
this can be done domestically. If there is something that we
are doing that is encouraging it to go domestic, that would be
helpful for us to know. Because it would help us with jobs and
progressing with the industry and the relationships with the
airlines to the local communities if they would do it locally.
There is no substitute to having a worker that lives in the
district for having a tenacious commitment to the airline as
well. That is different when the work is done internationally,
and it is separate from it.
Thank you for that. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. I thank the gentleman and thank our witnesses
and yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. It is my understanding our colleague
Mr. Shuster has some additional questions, but we will ask him
to submit them for the record and that you respond and we will
hold the record open for that.
Thank you all very much. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]