FAA and NASA Drone Industry Workshop

Safety Through Integrity, Innovation and People

Remarks As Delivered

Introduction

Thank you for that kind introduction, Paul. It’s good to be here at the Washington Aero Club among so many friends and colleagues. You know, I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, but this is the first time I’ve been to a Washington Aero Club luncheon, despite being in the aviation business for 40 years. It wasn’t anything deliberate on my part, even though there are many familiar faces here—it’s just that our paths never crossed at this venue. Actually, truth be told, somebody told me you have to give up your “outside the Beltway” membership card if you come to one of these, so that’s why I stayed away.

I’m also thrilled to be here today to see Carl receive the Engen Trophy. As you all know, Carl is the epitome of a public servant, and he’s passionate about aviation. We at the FAA are better because of him, and the American public has benefited greatly from Carl’s leadership and dedication. It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to work with him, and call him colleague and friend. Congratulations, Carl.

It’s hard not to be passionate about an industry that makes our world smaller. Aviation fundamentally redefines geographic boundaries, provides tremendous economic opportunities, and connecting people and cultures in ways that were unimaginable not too long ago.  And I know the people in this room- regardless of differences in perspectives and experiences--share a common bond--a love for aviation. We also share a commitment to enhancing the benefits aviation offers our citizens today, as well as the promise it holds to connect the world in the decades ahead.

That’s why I’m here—because I love aviation, and I love people. It’s a privilege to lead. I’ve discovered great people at the FAA, and as you might imagine I’m getting a lot of advice about how to run the place. Now, some of that advice has been more helpful than other advice has. But seriously, it’s already been a rewarding adventure.

Background

Now I know you’re probably asking yourself, “Why did you do it, Steve? Why become FAA Administrator?” Several people asked me the same question when I was going through the confirmation process. One of those people was my wife, who also questioned my sanity at several points along the way. The FAA was actually an unplanned diversion from our original flight plan. I was looking for what the next thing would be after my military and airline career. My wife thought it would be retirement.

But when Secretary Chao called me and asked if I’d consider leading the FAA, I said I’d be interested in talking about it.  FAA Administrator is not something you aspire to or even contemplate, but if I could help make a difference, I could think of no better way to serve my country in a way that allows me to use my passion for flying and my four decades of experience in the aviation industry.  I am both humbled and grateful that I have the chance to lead the FAA at this historic--and challenging--time. But challenges create opportunities, don’t they?

My experience includes flying F-15 fighters in our Air Force and 27 years at Delta Air Lines.  At Delta, I flew as a line pilot for the first nine years of my career, eventually qualifying on the B727, B737, B757, B767 and A320 series aircraft. The last 12 years I served as the Senior Vice President of Flight Operations.

During a visit to an aviation high school last month, one of the students asked me my favorite plane to fly during my airline career. I said I liked them all, but my favorite big jet is the 757. But I’m also fond of the 727, where I started out as a flight engineer.  Even though I was qualified as a fighter pilot, the most difficult training program I ever completed was as a flight engineer trainee in the 727 at Delta. On that airplane the flight engineer was the system integrator, and you had to really have a detailed understanding of every system on the aircraft. Sitting down in front of the engineer panel was something very foreign for a single-seat fighter pilot. Early in training, staring at the banks of amber indicator lights on the panel while figuring out what to do—if a student hesitated the instructors would joke that you were sitting there “getting a suntan.”

But it was a great way to learn about airline operations. The way the cockpit was laid out, the flight engineer was always working with the flight attendants, working customer service issues, working with the captain on checklists, all the time gaining valuable insight into how the captain was managing the flight deck and making decisions.

As SVP of flight ops, I was responsible for the safety and operational performance of the company’s global flight operations of more than a million flights a year on six continents, as well as pilot training, crew resources, crew scheduling and regulatory compliance. That job made me understand this simple fact: regardless of change, increasing complexity or competition-- safety always has to remain the focus and bedrock of our industry.

So now three months into my job here at the FAA, let me share a few observations. I’ll start out by saying I feel a little like that new-hire flight engineer—a lot experience, but a completely new environment and a lot to learn!

The MAX

Not surprisingly, I’ve been in a lot of conversations about the Boeing 737 MAX. 

On behalf of everyone at the FAA, I would like to, once again, extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air accidents. Many nations, including the United States, had citizens on those flights. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell and I have met with the family members and friends of those onboard. Each time we meet, we see their pain, their loss, and it reaffirms the seriousness with which we must approach safety every single day. We want our citizens and our own families to have confidence in the aviation system when they travel. These accidents should not have happened. That is why we, as regulators and operators, work so hard in our jobs every day. 

I will tell you this, and if you don’t remember anything else I say today, please remember this:  I am absolutely committed to honoring the memory of those who lost their lives, by working tirelessly—each and every day of my tenure—to ensure the highest possible margin of safety in the global aviation system. We will never rest. We can always find ways to improve. We can always do better. Safety is a journey, not a destination—a journey we undertake each and every day with humility and a focus on continuous improvement.

I’ve said this before but will continue to repeat it: the FAA’s return-to-service decision for the MAX will be based solely on our assessment of the sufficiency of Boeing’s proposed software updates and pilot training that addresses the known issues for grounding the aircraft. We are not delegating anything. When we finally take the decision to return this aircraft to service, it will be the most scrutinized aircraft in history. It will also be one of the safest machines to ever take to the sky. I am not going to sign off on this aircraft until I fly it myself and am satisfied that I would put my own family on it without a second thought.

As both Dan and I have said, we welcome scrutiny and feedback on how we can improve our processes. Several independent reviews have been undertaken of the 737 MAX and the FAA’s certification and delegation processes. The first to be completed was one we commissioned–asking 9 other authorities to join us in the Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) to assess the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system certification. Never before have 10 authorities come together to conduct a review of this sort. And I want to emphasize that we invited this probing review by our peer regulators. That is the FAA at its best. We welcome the JATR’s recommendations, and I appreciate their thorough review and hard work.

We also created a Technical Advisory Board, or TAB, made up of FAA Chief Scientists and experts from the U.S. Air Force, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, and NASA. The TAB’s job is to conduct an independent review of the proposed integrated system, training, and continued operational safety determination for the 737 MAX. The TAB recently briefed members of Congress and myself on their progress and status of Boeing’s and the FAA’s response to the Return to Service action items.

Work also continues on the Department of Transportation’s IG audit of the 737 MAX certification, as well as congressional investigations.  And we welcome the recent recommendations issued by the NTSB. Finally, we are also awaiting a report from the Secretary’s Special Committee on aircraft certification. This blue-ribbon panel was established earlier this year to advise and provide recommendations to the Department on policy-level topics related to certification across the manufacturer spectrum.

Willingness to accept critique is a sign of humility and transparency. It is also a strength. I have seen this firsthand as I’ve met our regulatory counterparts around the world. They appreciate and value US leadership. They understand that by working together, we will all be better and raise the bar on global aviation safety.

Going forward beyond the MAX, some key themes are emerging regarding aircraft certification processes not only in the US, but around the world. I am committed to addressing each of these issues.  They include:

• moving toward a more holistic versus transactional, item-by-item approach to aircraft certification;
• integrating human factors considerations more effectively throughout the design process, as aircraft become more automated and systems more complex;
• ensuring coordinated and flexible information flow during the oversight process.

An Exciting Time

While attention has been rightfully focused on the 737MAX, we are also focused on integrating innovative new entrants into the NAS. If you’ve been watching your FAA Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds, you’ve certainly seen the boom in the unmanned aircraft and commercial space sectors.

We’ve already registered about 1.5 million small drones, about 400,000 of which are for commercial purposes, and we’ve approved two Part 135 drone operators. As a point of reference for how fast this industry is moving, the FAA and its predecessors have been registering manned aircraft for 92 years, and after only four years of registering drones, we’ve got four times as many on the books.

UPS and FedEx are actively participating in trials to speed up the delivery of small packages and working on type certificates for small autonomous drones. Innovators up in Alaska are looking to do the same with much larger vehicles. We are learning a great deal about the innovative ways that drones can help society through our Integration Pilot Program, which Secretary Chao launched two years ago. Our strategy of “operations first,” is allowing us to use the existing regulatory regime, which helps us ensure innovation can drive forward. Said another way, over the last 3 years, we’ve shifted from writing rules to getting machines in the air and flying—and taking lessons learned from the operations approval process to write better rules. The vision is to integrate, rather than segregate, UAS into the NAS.

Through the Integration Pilot Program, we are partnering with 9 state, local and tribal governments and industry to inform UAS regulations, policy and guidance by learning from practical applications. Perhaps more importantly, these efforts have become the match that is lighting a creative fire in the industry and for what this novel new form of transportation might achieve.

Flying taxis—aka urban air mobility—are on the horizon and chomping at the bit to begin airspace testing. According to the FAA UAS team, we are currently engaged with the builders of more than 15 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft projects.

Airframers are eyeing a potential renaissance in supersonic civil aircraft and startup civil space companies are looking to connect New York and Shanghai in less than 40 minutes.  Commercial space launch activity has ramped up tenfold in just a few years. Just yesterday we saw a successful FAA-licensed and certified commercial space launch, which deployed 60 communications satellites to low Earth orbit.

Life-saving automation technologies are coming to smaller and smaller aircraft. Late last month, a prominent avionics maker unveiled a new product development that highlights the promise.  In a nutshell, if the pilot of a small plane equipped with this technology becomes incapacitated, the passengers now have a chance. They push a button on the panel, and the automation takes over and lands the plane at the nearest suitable airport. Imagine that!

All of this is exciting. As the regulator, we must find ways to operate ahead of the rate of change of the industry. This will require us to improve continuously and avoid bureaucratic inertia. We have to leverage our collective experience without allowing the attitude of “we’ve always done it that way” to be an obstacle.

Safety First

So how do we reconcile incredibly bright and innovative minds and fast-moving technologies with a reinvigorated regulatory agency that wants and needs innovation, but at the same time maintains safety as its North Star? 

We do it by sticking to our core values of “safety, through integrity, innovation and people.” And I see our strategy coalescing around four themes:

• Big data;
• Just culture;
• Global leadership; and
• People. 

Big Data: We must continue leaning into our role as a data-driven, risk-based decision-making oversight organization that prioritizes safety above all else. We do that by breaking down silos between organizations and implementing Safety Management Systems supported by compliance programs. We look at the aviation ecosystem as a whole, including how all the parts interact: aircraft, pilots, engineers, flight attendants, technicians, mechanics, dispatchers, air traffic controllers—everyone and everything in the operating environment. 

Just Culture: In addition to the technical work required for truly integrated data, a key enabler of a data-driven safety organization is a healthy reporting culture. A good safety culture produces the data you need to figure out what’s really happening. If we know about safety risks and we know where threats are coming from and how errors are occurring, we can mitigate the risks and fix the processes that led to those errors. A good safety culture demands that we infuse that safety data into all of our processes from top to bottom—in a continuous loop.  

To be successful, a safety organization relies on a Just Culture that places great value on front-line employees and those involved in the operation raising and reporting safety concerns in a timely, systematic way, without fearing retaliation. That requires that a Just Culture starts at the top. It’s something leadership has to nurture and support. Employees have to see the results, see what the data is showing, how the agency or company is using analysis tools to identify risks and errors and put actions in place to mitigate them.

From the perspective of an operations leader at an airline, Safety Management Systems allowed us to find out about issues and put preventative measures in place before an accident or incident occurs. Of course, there were certain actions that were out of bounds for example, if someone intentionally violated a rule. But if someone made an honest mistake, we would put corrective actions in place to make sure we addressed the issues systemically. Sometimes, it might involve retraining a crew, but in those cases where the data indicated a trend, the corrective actions often involved modifications to processes, procedures, policies or training.

Global Leadership: When you think about how far aviation has come in a little more than a century—from the barnstorming days to a safety record that is the envy of all modes of transportation—it’s hard to argue the value of these safety tools and the importance of the FAA’s leadership. Today, the U.S. aviation system is the safest, most dynamic and innovative in the world, and we have the numbers to prove it. This is largely due to these collaborative approaches to safety championed by the FAA and by many of the people in this room. Last Friday I spent some time out at MITRE with the ASIAS (Aviation Safety Information And Sharing) team. ASIAS is one of the crown jewels of the aviation safety system in the United States. It is unique in the world. This is an example of the kind of collaboration and safety innovation we can use to lead the global aviation safety system to even higher levels of performance. By working with and mentoring other authorities around the world, we will work to ensure we meet the public’s expectations of the highest possible levels of safety globally, even in areas we don’t regulate directly. Over the years the FAA has done more than any other organization around the world to promote and develop global aviation safety. We have an opportunity to do even more. We will do more.

Think about why you are here. At our core, we are all about working together to increase the margin of safety, because without that, we have nothing.

Maintaining the highest levels of safety, while adapting to technological advancements, is a key part of that success for all of us, here and around the world. Without safety as a foundation, we cannot have a vibrant aviation industry in any country, much less between countries. As it is, our international air transportation network is a tightly woven fabric that is dependent on all of us making safety our core value.

People: That brings me to my final point—people. We live in an exciting time in aviation, with new emerging technologies and capabilities. I’ve told some that this might be the most exciting time in aviation since the introduction of the jet engine or maybe even all the way back to the DC-3. But at its core, a huge technical operations and regulatory agency like the FAA is made of people—people who are driven to serve, people with families, hopes and dreams, people who want satisfying and fulfilling careers. I have the utmost respect for the job that they do every day, making sure our skies are safe and that the operation of the system is as efficient—and serves the public—as well as it possibly can. It’s now time to show that next generation of aviation leaders what incredible opportunities lie ahead for them in our field, both personally and professionally. It is the people who will innovate and collaborate to take us to the next level of safety, operational excellence and opportunity. 

Conclusion

Aviation’s hard lessons and the industry’s hard work have paved the way to creating a global aviation system with an enviable safety record. But as I said earlier, safety is a journey, not a destination. What we have done in the past and what we are doing now will not be good enough in the future. We must build on the lessons learned, and we must never allow ourselves to become complacent.

Those lessons teach us that in order to prevent the next accident from happening, we have to look at the overall aviation system and how all the pieces interact. If we don’t do this and instead focus on a single factor, we will miss opportunities to improve our margin of safety.

That will require truly integrated data, enterprise-wide. When our data—and our organizations—are kept in silos, we may miss information that could provide an opportunity to make important safety decisions that will improve processes or even prevent accidents entirely. We have to be constantly learning from each other – regulator and those we regulate—to help each other improve. That’s the only way the system is going to get better.

We at the FAA are prepared to take the lead in this new phase of system safety, a task we approach with a spirit of humility and openness. That’s a strength we have as a country. We will lead. We have to.

Thank you for your time and hospitality today. I look forward to serving and getting to know the Aero Club and its members much better in the coming years. It’s great to be with you—even if we’re inside the Beltway!

FAA Announces Results of International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) for the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia

New Protocols for Diabetics Seeking Air Transport and Commercial Pilots Medical Certification

Reminder Drone Safety Week Starts Today

New York City Marathon Declared No Drone Zone

Fly Safe: Addressing GA Safety

Runway Status Lights Now Fully Operational

UAS Operations Restricted At More Federal Facilities

ALTA Airline Leaders Forum

Remarks As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Amanda Pinheiro [Consultant at AP Communications], for that kind introduction. Bom Dia  [Good morning] to everyone. It’s great to be here in the capital city of Brasilia. Although I’ve flown to many South American countries in my years as an airline pilot, this is my first trip to Brazil.

As for Brasilia, I can think of no better location for this important Forum than a city built nearly 60 years ago in the shape of an airplane. A design that mimics one of our greatest human achievements—powered flight—is a fitting architectural icon when it comes to spurring the imagination and progress. 

I’d like to thank our gracious hosts, ALTA and in particular, Felipe [de Oliveira, ALTA’s Executive Director], as well as my counterparts here in Brazil, including ANAC, DECEA, Infraero and SAC.

The United States and Brazil have long been leaders in civil aviation. We honor the vision, passion and perseverance of our aviation pioneers—the Wright Brothers and Alberto Santos Dumont—more than 100 years ago.

Since then, the United States and the broader Latin America and Caribbean regions have made significant progress starting almost 90 years ago with the Havana Convention, which was later replaced by the Chicago Convention. Provisions in the Convention enabled U.S.-owned airlines to freely operate services within North and South America. 

It was more than 75 years ago when the FAA’s forerunner, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, launched its first Inter-American Training Program to train future pilots, mechanics and airways technicians.

Today, air transport is an economic engine in the Latin America and Caribbean regions:  

• In Latin American and the Caribbean, aviation contributes more than $150 billion to the region’s GDP while connecting 160 global cities.
• Airlines in the region generate more than 7 million jobs and support 2.6 million flights per year.
• Since 2012, the annual passenger traffic growth to, from and within Latin America has averaged nearly 6%, and the industry expects that strong growth to continue.
• The Latin American Fleet has been transformed over the past twenty years, from one of the oldest in the world in terms of average ago to one of the youngest.

And that gets to the heart of why I’m here—To keep aviation a healthy and competitive industry, safety must be our foundation and top priority.

The accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia—and the tragic loss of 346 lives—remind us in the strongest terms that passengers expect one level of safety no matter where they fly. Without that confidence as a baseline, there’s no need for competitiveness—the public will simply not fly.

Before I say more, I would like to acknowledge again the tragic loss of life in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX accidents, especially as we approach the one-year anniversary of the Lion Air crash. Our thoughts are with the families and friends during this difficult time.

We want them to know that we are working our hardest to improve the margin of safety for the aviation industry globally, and that we are fully committed to implementing the recommendations from the various groups reviewing our processes as part of the necessary work of continuous improvement on safety.

The FAA and other international authorities are working diligently to ensure that this type of accident does not occur again. Getting it right is the most important part of the safety community’s obligation to the traveling public.

I would like to recognize our colleagues here in Brazil for their help on various aspects of the MAX analyses and reviews. Included are Roberto Honorato, of ANAC, and two of his colleagues who were members of the Joint Authorities Technical Review, or JATR. I will speak more about the JATR’s work and the MAX return-to-service later.

When I was at Delta, I was responsible for the safety and operational performance of the company’s global flight operations of more than a million flights a year on six continents, as well as pilot training, crew resources, crew scheduling and regulatory compliance.

That job made me understand this fact: To remain competitive in an industry of fast-paced change and increasing complexities, safety must be our main focus and core value.

I understand very well that there is always a certain tension between accomplishing the mission –getting the job done- and focusing on safety.

For example, pilots always have to deal with operational pressure. There is pressure to get customers to their destinations on time. There is pressure to complete the flight—pressure to accomplish the mission. We need to see this in ourselves and every so often step back and make sure we are doing things the right way, which means the safest way and usually the most efficient way because safety is built into the process.

And leadership needs to back their people up. You can ask any Delta pilot, and if they were around during my tenure they heard me say repeatedly: “make the tough call and I will support you. If ever you need to stop the operation in the interest of safety, do it. Set the parking brake, get everything sorted out, and get everyone on the same page before proceeding. If you need help or resources, ask for them. If it turns out we need to delay or cancel the flight then we will. I will support you every time.” There will always be pressure to get the job done. But we can’t let it compromise our duty to do things the right way—the safest way.

Secondly, the abilities for self-examination and continuous improvement need to be ingrained in us. What we did yesterday, and what we are doing today will not be good enough tomorrow. Everything in our business is changing so fast and we have to able to stay ahead of that pace of change.

This is in so many ways the most exciting time in the history of aviation, probably since the introduction of the jet engine into commercial service, or going back even further to the DC-3.

We’re seeing radically new entrants vying for access into the airspace…the likes of which 20 years ago, heck, even five years ago, were science fiction. The FAA has already registered more than 1.4 million small drones, about 400,000 of which are for commercial purposes; we’ve approved two Air Taxi applications.

As a point of reference for how fast this industry is moving, the FAA has been registering manned aircraft for 92 years, and after only four years of registering drones, we’ve got four times as many on the books.

Flying taxis—aka urban air mobility—are on the horizon and chomping at the bit to begin airspace testing. According to the FAA UAS team, we are currently engaged with the builders of more than 15 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft projects.

We have proposed new rules that will remove bureaucracy and streamline the testing process for a new generation of civil supersonic aircraft.

We have civilian space pioneers getting ready to take suborbital excursions offered by multiple startup space companies at non-traditional launch sites, like Oklahoma or Alcantara in Northern Brazil.

And let’s not forget airspace modernization. On January 1, ADS-B— the backbone of our next-generation, or NextGen, air traffic management system—will become the primary surveillance technology in most U.S. controlled airspace. As of early October, we surpassed the 100,000 mark for equipped aircraft.

On January 1, 2020, all aircraft operating in certain U.S. airspace must be equipped for the ADS-B Out mandate.

Maintaining the highest levels of safety while adapting to technological advancements will be a key part of our success.

To effectively manage all this activity, I have set out four main priorities for my time at the FAA—Safety; Global Leadership; Stakeholder Engagement, and People. Note that my first priority is Safety…

Let’s talk about the MAX. It is crucial that we make safety improvements to the overall aviation system as we learn from the various international efforts analyzing the 737 MAX and its certification.

I’ve said this before but will continue to repeat it: The FAA’s return-to-service decision based solely on our assessment of the sufficiency of Boeing’s proposed software updates and pilot training that addresses the known issues for grounding the aircraft. That decision will be applicable only to U.S. carriers operating in U.S. airspace.

Other civil aviation regulators have to take their own actions to return the 737 MAX to service for their air carriers and their airspace. We are conducting numerous outreach activities….

• We are providing assistance to support states on return-to-service issues
• Maintain communication and sharing of information; and
• Schedule more technical webinars in the future.

As far as regaining public trust in the FAA and the safety of the 737 MAX, when we return it to service, we believe the transparency, open and honest communication, and our willingness to constantly improve our systems and processes are the key.

Transparency into our process, transparency into the independent reviews and changes that result from them, our testimony in congressional hearings, our informational briefings to Congressional staff, and our media outreach through our FAA Office of Communications are all important. The public and civil aviation authorities must know that we are not resting on previous safety rates or current processes.

We welcome feedback on how we certified the 737 MAX and are dedicated to providing the safest aviation system in the world. We remain transparent and communicate our actions with international regulators, so that they have the information to make an informed decision.

As you know, there are multiple different independent investigations and audits ongoing on the 737 MAX and the FAA’s certification and delegation processes. The first to be completed was the Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) team’s review of the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system certification.In addition to FAA specialists, the JATR team included aviation safety professionals from NASA, Europe, Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, China, United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

We welcomed the team’s recommendations in their final report, and I appreciate their thorough review and hard work.The JATR report highlighted 12 recommendations that would address certain certification and policy-related observations about system safety assessments, human factors, staffing, and oversight of the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) process.

We are fully committed to address all of the recommendations, with special emphasis on those that might pertain to returning the 737 MAX to service. As we have said repeatedly, the aircraft will fly ONLY after we determine it is safe.

The FAA’s formation of the JATR was an unprecedented step in that direction. Never before, have 10 civil aviation authorities come together to jointly evaluate the certification processes of one of the partners. The scope of inclusion and communication with our international partners far exceeds any previous effort. The decision to launch the JATR was based on full transparency, openness and delivering on our obligation as the global leader in aviation safety.

Based on what we’re learning, I see tremendous opportunities for us to make meaningful improvements to the international aviation system. Included is the need to advocate for a global conversation about deepening the understanding of human factors and raising the standards on pilot training.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that while competitiveness is in our nature—we all strive to be the best and our industry thrives because of it—we cannot compete on safety. 

Safety must be our top priority and most important core value. Without that foundation, we falter as an interconnected global transportation network. 

We at the FAA support ALTA’s mission to provide for the development of a safer, more efficient air transport system, and we thank you for your support of our initiatives of the same.

We remain committed to working closely with our government and industry partners throughout Latin America to address the safety and air navigation challenges in the region, and to increase the margins of safety for all of aviation.

I would like to again thank ALTA for inviting me, and to my counterparts here in Brazil for being such gracious hosts.

Obrigado —Thank you.