Optics and Overreach

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA)—the Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization that collects, interprets, and disseminates operational and managerial data related to the safe, efficient, and cost-effective use of business aircraft—welcomed the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) January 2023 decision to extend the public comment period on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would expand the compulsory implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS).

Granted the weight of regulation, the NPRM would update and augment 14 CFR Part 5 SMS requirements, expanding such beyond the Part 121 commercial airlines to which they currently apply, and obligating Part 135 air charter operators, certain Part 21 certificate holders, and companies holding letters of authorization to conduct air tour operations under Part 91.147 to develop and implement discrete SMS protocols.

The FAA has extended the deadline for public comment on the SMS NPRM from 13 March to 12 April 2023, thereby granting stakeholders additional time to review the proposed rule—the implications of which, in the opinions of myriad aircraft operators, stand to be burdensome, costly, and of nominal actual benefit to operational safety.

NBAA senior vice president of safety, security, sustainability, and international operations Doug Carr remarked: “We thank the FAA for granting our request for this extension as NBAA and other stakeholders continue to review the NPRM. However, we must ensure that any rulemaking permits scalability to the specific size and needs of every affected flight operation.”

In his request for the extension, Mr. Carr noted that the FAA had sought information from selected single-pilot Part 135 operators that may lack the resources necessary to implement a full-scale SMS, stating: “While we remain strongly supportive of SMS as an effective solution to help improve flight safety, we must also ensure that any rulemaking is rolled out responsibly and in full consideration of the varied nature of many business aviation operations.”

The FAA, in 2018, obliged U.S. Part 121 airlines to implement SMS. In 2020, Congress called upon the agency to broaden the scope of SMS requirements to include non-scheduled commercial aviation operations.

In responding to Mr. Carr’s request, the FAA conceded that additional entities within the aviation industry had requested the SMS NPRM’s comment period be extended by up to 90 days. The agency opted to ignore such requests, however, setting forth that thirty-days was sufficient time for comment on the proposal.

According to the FAA, Safety Management System (SMS) denotes a formal, top-down, organization-wide approach to managing safety risk and assuring the effectiveness of safety risk controls. It includes systematic procedures, practices, and policies for the management of safety risk.

Pilots, however, broadly look upon Safety Management Systems as blame allocation mechanisms—nooses fashioned from red tape—that function on the fatuous premise that the risks innate to packing people into aluminum tubes and blasting them through the upper atmosphere on columns of burning jet fuel can be mitigated with paperwork. Plainly stated, thousands of veteran pilots with immaculate safety records consider the notion of the SMS a ham-handed bureaucratic attempt to supplant pilot expertise and experience with flowcharts, worksheets, and rudimentary mathematics.

FMI: www.nbaa.org, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/01/11/2022-28583/safety-management-systems