Thanks, Chris Lehman. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here at this important gathering – billed as the “world’s largest gathering of aviation training professionals.” It’s great to see such a turnout. Training is such an important part of keeping our system safe. It’s such an important part of our joint mission of keeping aviation safe.

It’s my privilege to be here. This morning, I want to talk about:

• The evolving role of training in aviation safety.
• How the FAA evaluates risk, and how that view has evolved in recent years.
• How the industry itself is changing, and what challenges that presents.
• The importance of all of us working together to keep the system safe.

Let me start by talking about the FAA’s approach to safety, and how that’s evolved.

For most of our history, safety was a function of accident investigation. Safety was forensic. There would be an accident; we would study the causes; then we would implement changes to make sure that accident never happened that way again.

And that was a successful system. We have reduced commercial accidents in the U.S. to a very low rate. The last U.S. accident was the Colgan accident in Buffalo in 2009. While we have learned many things from that accident, and I’ll talk about those today, we had to develop other methods for finding and mitigating risk in the system. Fewer accidents led to a new approach.

Because there still is risk.

• We continue to experience a lot of growth and change in aviation.
• There’s more automation on the flight deck and in air traffic control systems.
• We are also integrating new types of aircraft in the system, like commercial spacecraft and unmanned aircraft.

While these changes are important and welcome, they are also complex from a safety standpoint. They introduce potential sources of safety risk. So how do we manage this risk? We have to spot the unsafe trends before they become accidents.

To do this, we have developed a risk-based decision making system.

Risk-based decision making focuses on finding risk before an accident occurs. We do this by collecting large amounts of safety data from many sources

• Air traffic controllers.
• Airway technicians.
• Commercial pilots.
• GA pilots
• Mechanics
• Dispatchers
• And other aviation professionals, and through other sources.  

We then use this data to conduct risk analysis to identify potentially high risk areas. Then we target our resources to address these higher risk areas.

• Collect the data,
• Analyze the data,
• Identify risks, and
• Mitigate the risks.

Working with all of you is a key to the success of this approach. We need your data, your experiences, and your ideas to make this work.

In fact, engaging with our stakeholders is key. We do that at conferences like this one, and sometimes through a more formal approach, like the rule making process.

In the area of training, we’re engaging stakeholders through the Air Carrier Training Aviation Rulemaking Committee, the ACT ARC, which we established one year ago. This effort represents a major commitment by both the FAA and industry to determine voluntary initiatives air carriers can take to improve pilot, flight attendant, and dispatcher training. 

I know many members of this ARC are in the audience today, and I thank you for your commitment and hard work on this. Already the ARC’s work is making a difference. It has recommended ways to improve pilot knowledge and skills to manage the flight path of the airplane. This is helping us to address the risk of pilot skill atrophy as the reliance on flight deck automation grows.

The committee has also made recommendations to improve helicopter air ambulance training, like setting minimum hours for initial and recurrent training, and developing guidance for line oriented flight training, or LOFT – a way to train the crew by simulating real-life scenarios involving accident scenes and danger zones.  

In addition, the committee is looking at ways to develop alternative education, training and experience pathways to qualify for an Airline Transport Pilot, or ATP certificate.

This work is ongoing, and we look forward to receiving additional safety recommendations. Some of these recommendations may become rules, but many of your companies will adopt safety procedures long before the rule becomes final. This early adoption is a result of industry engagement, and allows us to mitigate risk faster than the traditional rulemaking approach.

Risk-based decision making is not the only way we have safety enhancements.

I mentioned the 2009 Colgan accident. After that tragedy, Congress enacted the “Airline Safety and FAA Extension Act of 2010” to enhance flight safety. One provision in that law requires all first officers to have an ATP certificate so they have a stronger foundation of aeronautical knowledge and more experience before flying for an air carrier.

It takes 1,500 flight hours to obtain an ATP, and this has caused some to raise concerns about the pilot applicant pool. The FAA was given authority to make some adjustments to the law, and we issued a rule giving pilots credit for structured academic and military training, so they can meet the standard with fewer than 1,500 hours.

The FAA is open to discussing other ways to strengthen the pilot pipeline, but this will require cooperation from across the industry.

While the law passed by Congress in 2010 focused on pilot qualifications, the FAA recognized that we also had to make more targeted interventions to address other areas that the Colgan accident brought to light: including pilot fatigue and basic pilot skill proficiency.

We used fatigue science to help us update the flight and duty rules in a way that helps ensure a flight crew member arrives at work rested and ready to fly.

We also issued rules targeted at strengthening training for a pilot’s stick and rudder skills. After Colgan, it was understood that pilots should have more experience in recognizing the cues of an actual stall, and reinforce their ability to recover from that stall.

Specifically, the rules require that air carriers must now implement training programs by 2018 to address the recognition, prevention, and recovery from full stalls. Again, we believe these targeted training interventions will drive down these risk factors. 

Simulator Training

Another source of safety innovation is technology. Simulator and related technologies have improved dramatically in recent years. Training simulators are a key part of pilot training. We looked at what changes should be made to rules that apply to simulators. We saw that current rules for simulators required that pilots be trained and evaluated up to the stall warning, but not up to the full stall. So we’re proposing improvements to simulator models so they can be used to train pilots to recover from a full stall. 

We’re working to address another factor in the Colgan accident – icing conditions. We’re proposing to require that industry incorporate more accurate aerodynamic icing models. Our plan is to issue a final rule in 2016, so that industry has time to modify their simulators by March 2019, which is the deadline for the air carriers to implement full stall and upset recovery training programs.

These changes will enable us to mitigate many of the factors that contributed to the Colgan accident.   

Aviation Training Devices      

Technology advances also hold promise for general aviation. We are enacting new opportunities for use of aviation training devices, or ATD’s, to enhance GA safety.

ATD’s are an effective, safe, and affordable way to obtain pilot experience. The technology has come a long way. They’re more realistic and capable of simulating all kinds of weather conditions.

We’re in the process of issuing a rule that would increase the number of allowed credit hours in an FAA-approved ATD to count towards a pilot’s minimum 40 hours of instrument time required for the instrument rating. This change will relieve some of the burdens on GA pilots seeking to obtain aeronautical experience.   

Flight Attendant and Dispatcher Training Guidance

Similar safety advances are being made in flight attendant and dispatcher training. The FAA will be issuing some specific guidance to improve training in these areas.     Many of you are familiar with our Advance Qualification Program, or AQP. In pilot training, AQP provides a way for trainers to conduct a task analysis of the pilot’s duties. They can collect data on pilot performance, and then focus the training toward tasks that need more reinforcement. For instance, if the data shows that a pilot is highly proficient at performing ILS approaches, then training resources can be focused more toward other kinds of skill reinforcement.

The FAA will be issuing specific guidance on how to develop these kinds of data-driven training programs for flight attendants and dispatchers. We’ll do that through a revision to the AQP Advisory Circular later this year.   

Professionalism

Let me close by saying safety is our mission at the FAA, and certainly rules and policy guidance are essential to achieving our goal of providing the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. An equally vital component is the professionalism we expect from pilots, cabin crew, dispatchers, mechanics and trainers. Your participation in this conference is a result of your professionalism.  

Everyone here has a unique set of expertise when it comes to flying. Let’s continue to bring this expertise together, so we can bring about even better, more targeted training solutions to ensure safety. The FAA looks forward to continuing our collaboration with industry. With your continued engagement, and your expertise, there’s no doubt we’ll be successful. 

Thank you.