Aviation Safety: Data Problems Threaten FAA Strides on Safety Analysis
System (Chapter Report, 02/08/95, GAO/AIMD-95-27).

Overall, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has done a credible
job analyzing and defining the requirements of the Safety Performance
Analysis System, an automated decision support system that FAA is
acquiring to help it target its limited inspection and certification
resources.  However, FAA's current estimates for system software are
subjective, not supported by verifiable analysis, and therefore may be
unreliable.  To identify aviation safety risk precursors, the system
depends on information from many databases, including those compromising
FAA's Aviation Safety Analysis System.  As previously reported by GAO,
FAA, and others, these Aviation Safety Analysis System databases contain
incomplete, inconsistent, and inaccurate data. If the data quality is
poor, the system's input into safety decisions will not be reliable and
will not effectively support FAA's inspection and certification system.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  AIMD-95-27
     TITLE:  Aviation Safety: Data Problems Threaten FAA Strides on 
             Safety Analysis System
      DATE:  02/08/95
   SUBJECT:  Management information systems
             Transportation safety
             Airline industry
             Data bases
             Statistical data
             Inspection
             Airline regulation
             Data integrity
             Systems architecture
             Computer networks
IDENTIFIER:  FAA Safety Performance Analysis System
             FAA Aviation Safety Analysis System
             FAA Administrative Data Transfer Network 2000
             FAA Aviation Information Exchange Network
             FAA ASAS Program Tracking and Reporting Subsystem
             FAA ASAS Vital Information Subsystem