Administrator Meets With GA Leaders In Washington, D.C.

FAA Administrator Huerta met with general aviation leaders in a General Aviation Safety Summit Monday to jump start safety efforts for this year’s flying season. The summit attendees agreed to work together to raise awareness to prevent weather related accidents for the upcoming flying season.

"Improving general aviation safety is a top priority for the FAA and industry," Huerta said. "The general aviation fatal accident rate has flattened over the past six years and there were 259 fatal accidents in 2013, at a cost of 449 lives."

The FAA is also working with industry on a prototype program to use de-identified GA operations data in the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) program to help identify risks before they become accidents. Lastly, Administrator Huerta announced that the agency is issuing a policy that streamlines the process for granting approval to use Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (RVSM).

"The new policy establishes a more flexible and efficient process that will allow the FAA to customize its evaluation for RVSM based on the circumstances of the applicant. Since 2005, RVSM has allowed pilots domestically to fly with 1,000 feet of vertical separation rather than the previous 2,000 feet at cruising altitudes. The FAA will consider previous operator and aircraft experience in determining the extent of the evaluation, and this will reduce the amount of time for operators to receive an authorization," Huerta said.

In conjunction with the summit, the FAA released a fact sheet outlining the its work with industry and other civil aviation authorities to develop a performance-based approach to airworthiness standards for Part 23 airplanes. These airplanes range from small piston-powered airplanes to complex high-performance executive jets. The goal is to set an international standard that advances the introduction of new technology and reduces fatal accidents and certification costs by 50 percent.

The FAA is working with manufacturers to define equipage requirements and support NextGen by streamlining the certification and installation of NextGen technologies, and to streamline the approval of angle of attack indicators for GA aircraft with a goal of retrofitting the existing GA fleet.

FMI: Fact Sheet, www.faa.gov