To Testify Thursday Before Congress About FAA Oversight
Tom Brantley, national president of
the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS),
released the following statement regarding his upcoming testimony
on April 3 before the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee on FAA oversight of air carriers:
"The FAA has become so focused on working well with the airlines
that it has allowed its safety mission to suffer at times. FAA
safety inspectors are on the front lines of enforcing aviation
safety standards. Yet, on far too many occasions, the FAA has
labeled its own safety inspectors as troublemakers for simply
reporting violations or allowed airline management to demand the
reassignment of an inspector trying to hold a carrier
accountable.
"The FAA has not only promoted an internal culture where safety
is given second billing, but it has manipulated every aspect of the
enforcement process in order to encourage and maintain a positive
relationship between the agency and the airlines. Safety inspectors
are on the frontline protecting this country’s aviation
system and trust should no doubt be placed in their professionalism
and expertise. Punishing safety inspectors for discovering
violations or impeding them from making safety of the system their
priority should not be tolerated.
"Safety inspectors have been relegated to auditors who inspect
more paperwork than airplanes, the records obviously do not tell
the whole story. Without robust physical inspections, there is no
way to know if the data is accurate or complete since it is
provided by the airlines. Given the importance of safety to air
travel, the FAA is in no position to rely solely on a data-driven
system. The process must be reintegrated as a combination of data
reporting and physical inspections. With nearly half of the
inspector workforce eligible to retire in the next five years, the
FAA must address severe understaffing to ensure that it can give
proper oversight to the industry. And FAA managers should be
rotated on a regular basis to prevent the cozy relationships that
appear to be clouding judgment.
"While the announcement last week by FAA management to create a
system to make it harder to dismiss issues raised by inspectors is
appropriate, it reveals an FAA culture gone awry. Even the FAA
recognizes that it is not listening to its inspectors when it has
to create new safeguards to do so."
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