PASS Plans To Tell Congress FAA Culture Lacking On Airline Safety | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Thu, Apr 03, 2008

PASS Plans To Tell Congress FAA Culture Lacking On Airline Safety

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."

FMI: www.passnational.org

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Prelim: Piper PA-23

Pilot Also Reported That Due To A Fuel Leak, The Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Were Not Used On June 4, 2025, at 13:41 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-23, N2109P, was substantially damage>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: One Man’s Vietnam

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): Reflections on War’s Collective Lessons and Cyclical Nature The exigencies of war ought be colorblind. Inane social-constructs the likes of racis>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Capella Aircraft Corp FW1C50

Pilot Reported That He Was Unfamiliar With The Single Seat Amateur-Built Airplane And His Intent Was To Perform High-Speed Taxi Testing Analysis: The pilot reported that he was unf>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Timber Tiger Touts Curtiss Jenny Replicas

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): First Kits to Ship October 2023 Having formerly resurrected the storied shape of the Ryan ST—in effigy, anyway—Montrose, Colorado-based Tim>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.04.25): Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO]

Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO] Area navigation based on performance requirements for aircraft operating along an ATS route, on an instrument approach procedure or in a d>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC