Good morning, everyone. I know some of you traveled a long way to be here, and I want to thank you for joining us today.
Aviation is truly an international industry. Passengers can board a plane, watch a movie, and just a few hours later step out on the other side of the world. When they do this, they expect the same level of safety and service no matter where they’re traveling.
It’s our job – as regulators, as airlines, as manufacturers and suppliers – to not only deliver on these expectations, but exceed them. It’s on us to work together and ensure the safety of our global aviation system transcends any physical borders.
There’s no question that our community has been tested in almost every way possible over the past two years.
The crashes involving flights from Malaysia Airlines. Germanwings. Egypt Air. Tragedies like these don’t just happen to one country, or one airline. They happen to all of us. We grieve for the lives that are lost. And we turn inward to look at ourselves.
How do we prevent similar incidents from occurring again? How do we improve our processes and procedures? How do we make the world’s safest form of transportation even safer?
We all come from different nations. But we all have to answer these questions. So many of the challenges we face are the same.
Over the last several months, I’ve had the opportunity to travel abroad and visit a number of my international counterparts. In London, I spoke at Chatham House and Lloyd’s of London. In Israel, I visited the Peres Center for Peace. And in Paris, I delivered a speech at the Cercle Interalliee [Sehr-cluh Onter-al-yay], a historic club founded to welcome American pilots who volunteered to fly for the French Air Service as part of the Lafayette Escadrille flying squadron.
At all of these stops, one thing became clear. Aviation has become an international language all its own – and it’s imperative that we use it to advance our shared safety goals.
That’s the value of those trips, and of forums like this. They give us an opportunity to come together and share ideas and potential solutions.
Today, I’m going to talk about some of the issues we’re dealing with in the United States – and how we’re working with our international counterparts to ensure our efforts support a safe, harmonized global aviation system.
Aviation has been about pushing the limits of what’s possible from its earliest days. Our industry is constantly changing. And as new challenges and opportunities emerge, we have to find new ways to continue raising the bar on safety.
For decades, we analyzed accidents after they happened to determine what went wrong and prevent them from happening again.
Now we’re going a step further – proactively using data to assess risks, focus our attention where it’s needed most, and deliver safer outcomes on a system-wide level.
This approach has been working for us in the United States. Thanks to our collaboration with airlines, manufacturers, labor, and others under the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, we reduced the fatality risk for commercial accidents by 83 percent between 1998 and 2008. We’re now aiming to further reduce the risk by another 50 percent by 2025.
Based on our success in the United States, we believe this shift towards a collaborative, data-driven risk management philosophy is the best step forward for our safety culture, and I know many of you here today have adopted the same approach.
Of course, we’re not always going to agree about everything.
Pilot mental fitness is a topic all of us are grappling with. Our European counterparts recently took action, and the FAA issued our own findings last week.
Based on the recommendations of an Aviation Rulemaking Committee made up of aviation and medical experts, the FAA is not recommending the addition of psychological testing to either the pilot hiring process or to the periodic, routine pilot health evaluation.
Psychological tests generally provide insight into a person’s mindset at only a particular moment in time.
So the Aerospace Medical Association concluded that in-depth psychological testing for detecting serious mental illness as part of the routine periodic pilot aeromedical assessment is neither productive nor cost-effective.
Instead, the FAA is pursuing a continuous, holistic approach that seeks to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness in the aviation industry so pilots are more likely to self-report, get treated, and return to work.
To advance this goal, the FAA, the airlines, and the pilots unions have agreed to take a number of actions.
The FAA is improving and expanding training on mental health issues for Aviation Medical Examiners so they can better identify warning signs in pilots.
We’re working closely with the airlines to include pilot support programs in the safety management systems that guide their operations.
And we’ll be partnering with the airlines and pilots unions to raise awareness about mental health issues and the resources available to pilots who need help.
We don’t consider this to be a static issue. It’s one we’re going to continue looking at closely, because we know we don’t have all the answers.
We’ll continue working with aviation, medical, and international stakeholders to see if we need to make additional changes.
The FAA will be collaborating with the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority Chief Medical Officer in their study of the medical and psychiatric outcomes of pilots who underwent personality testing several decades ago. We’ll also be exploring early recognition of personality and behavioral traits that could pose issues in the future for pilots.
When it comes to managing risk, we’re not just looking at ways to improve our policies and procedures. We’re also using that mindset to integrate new technologies into our airspace.
Some have called the birth of the unmanned aircraft industry the Wright Brothers moment of our time – and that may be so.
But if there’s anything we’ve learned through our experience with unmanned aircraft so far, it’s that this industry moves at the speed of imagination.
The development cycle for an aircraft is usually measured in years. In the unmanned aircraft industry, products that substantially eclipse their predecessors can be developed and produced in mere months.
As a safety regulator, our primary job is to ensure the safety of the public and our skies. But we also recognize we need to do this in a way that doesn’t stifle this kind of innovation.
There’s a lot of excitement around unmanned aircraft right now – and for good reason. These devices have countless potential uses, on both the recreational and commercial sides.
Recently, a helicopter being used to conduct power line inspections made a hard landing on some railroad tracks near Baltimore, Maryland. This is exactly the type of job a small unmanned aircraft could do – with much less risk to people and property on the ground.
But as unmanned aircraft become more popular, they also pose unique challenges.
Across the United States, which includes our uniquely large general aviation community, we’ve seen an increase in reports about drones coming too close to manned aircraft and airports.
Some have interfered with wildfire fighting in California, and another crashed into a stadium during a U.S. Open tennis match.
This isn’t a problem that’s unique to America. We all heard about the scare at London Heathrow recently, where British authorities investigated a reported collision between an unmanned aircraft and a commercial jetliner.
It turned out the aircraft may have hit a plastic bag. But this incident was a reminder of what’s potentially at stake for passengers, regulators, and industry alike.
One thing is clear: we must incorporate drone users into the safety culture that defines our industry. Even if operators aren’t actually in their aircraft, they’re still aviators. And with that title comes a great deal of responsibility.
I know many of you are grappling with the best way to accomplish this goal.
I look forward to hearing about your experiences in the coming days – what you’ve tried, what’s working, and what you think the next best steps are. I know there’s a lot we can learn from each other.
At the FAA, we’ve made substantial progress by partnering with a wide range of government, aviation, and technology stakeholders to build consensus around a broad array of education and outreach initiatives.
Most notably, we set up a registration system for drones in just a matter of weeks with the help of an industry task force. So far, we’ve registered more than 464,000 hobbyists.
To put that in perspective, we only have 320,000 registered manned aircraft – and it took us 100 years to get there.
Each of these registrations represents one more person we’ve been able to reach with our safety message.
We’re also shifting our approach to regulation to match this nimble technology. We recognize that we have to move faster and think differently about how we do our jobs.
We’re in the process of creating a performance-based regulatory framework that addresses potential hazards, rather than a classification system that is based only on weight and speed.
This is a notable departure from how we traditionally approach safety. We can’t act at the speed of government. Being flexible and open-minded is key to successfully integrating new technologies into our busy, complex aviation system.
This flexibility is extending to other areas of our work as well. We don’t just need to integrate new technologies into our airspace – we need to integrate them into aircraft.
Aviation attracts some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the world. And they’ve got big ideas.
What will the planes of tomorrow look like? Has our quest for lighter materials like carbon fiber and nanotubes put us on the verge of game-changing designs?
These are exciting questions – and they’re being answered right now in research and development labs around the world.
As regulators, we need to be prepared to meet these innovations head on.
With the breakneck pace of technological change and the increasing complexity of the global supply chain, we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done them.
Over the past several years, the FAA has taken a long, hard look at how we certify aircraft and parts. In the past, we’ve made changes that were incremental, and often independent from each other.
Now, we’re setting out to make a comprehensive change in the way we do business in the name of increasing our efficiency and effectiveness.
We don’t want to wait for applicants to come to us with a completed aircraft design. We want to engage with designers and manufacturers early and often, so we can make sure our regulations support the new ideas and capabilities that are coming through the door.
Ultimately, we want to be more involved with industry – and we want to be involved at the right times.
In March, we proposed a rule that would overhaul the airworthiness standards for small general aviation airplanes. Instead of regulating certain design elements on specific technologies, the FAA is going to define the safety outcomes we want to achieve and let manufacturers figure out the best way to get there.
Our new approach means we won’t need to rewrite the rules every time something changes. Instead, manufacturers can focus on finding the most efficient and effective way to meet our performance standards.
This is just the beginning of the transformation of our certification process at the FAA.
We’re focusing more of our attention on areas of risk – such as an emerging aviation authority we haven’t worked with in the past, or a new technology that no one has ever seen.
We’re devoting fewer resources to authorities we have a high degree of confidence in, and designs we know are reliable.
Last year, we signed an agreement with EASA that said parts falling under a Technical Standard Order Authorization would be accepted by both the United States and Europe.
This means U.S. suppliers no longer need to seek European approval if their part, such as a seatbelt, has been approved by the FAA – and vice versa.
This will result in an estimated savings of about 1.7 million Euros for the American aviation industry in 2016 because of fewer application fees to EASA. We expect these savings to be the same or even increase in the future.
We also streamlined our validation of basic Supplemental Type Certificates as part of our agreement with EASA, which means less technical involvement on very basic designs.
We established similar agreements with Canada and Brazil, as well.
These types of partnerships are essential to the work we do at the FAA. And that’s particularly true as we make progress implementing America’s Next Generation Air Transportation System – better known as NextGen.
In recent years, we’ve built much of the foundational infrastructure that supports NextGen, and consumers and aviation stakeholders from across the country are now receiving measurable benefits.
En Route Automation Modernization, or ERAM, is now installed and operational at all of our en route air traffic control centers. ERAM gives us a much bigger, richer picture of our nation’s air traffic – and allows controllers to better manage flights from gate to gate.
The benefits of ERAM can’t be understated – particularly since it enables many other critical NextGen systems.
ERAM links seamlessly with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast technologies – otherwise known as ADS-B – to provide more accurate, satellite-based aircraft positions.
The FAA finished the coast-to-coast installation of the ADS-B ground network in 2014. It’s also integrated at all of our en route centers, so the system is ready and already being used.
But the full benefits of this technology can only be realized if all aircraft are equipped with ADS-B Out transmitters, which broadcast aircraft position. So we’re working to ensure aircraft flying in controlled airspace are equipped in advance of the January 1, 2020 deadline we’ve set.
Last week, Secretary Foxx and I announced a new rebate program that’s designed to help make installing ADS-B equipment more affordable for general aviation aircraft owners.
We hope this incentive, coupled with the falling price of equipment, will encourage owners to get off the sidelines and take advantage of all the safety benefits ADS-B has to offer.
Data Communications is another technology we’re using increase safety and improve every phase of flight.
Data Comm gives air traffic controllers and pilots the ability to transmit flight plans and other essential messages by text instead of voice communications.
This switch from voice to text increases safety by reducing the chance of a read-back error while relaying information. It also allows controllers to send text instructions to several aircraft at once – a much more accurate and efficient process.
Following a series of successful trials at airports around the country, we’ve ramped up the rollout of Data Comm this year. Twenty-seven air traffic control towers are currently using Data Comm, and we plan to get that number up to more than fifty by the end of 2016.
As we make these infrastructure investments, we’re also aware that we don’t operate within a vacuum.
Civil aviation authorities around the world are taking advantage of new technologies to make upgrades as well.
The FAA is working closely with our international counterparts to promote the global harmonization of air traffic management systems, including more common standards, technologies, and information exchange platforms.
We have several efforts underway through our NextGen-SESAR collaboration in Europe, as well as in Asia and the Caribbean. We’re making inroads in Africa through our Safe Skies for Africa program. And we’ve been an integral part of developing ICAO’s Aviation System Block Upgrades, which provide countries with guidance on how, where, and when to implement the operational and technical improvements that have come out of programs like NextGen and SESAR.
These partnerships are ensuring we maintain the interoperability of our systems – and provide the level of safety and service passengers around the world expect.
After all, that’s the reason we come together for forums like this one. It’s why we hammer out compromises and agreements through ICAO.
Safety is the aviation industry’s most important product. Without it, airlines don’t sell seats, manufacturers don’t sell airplanes, and suppliers don’t sell parts.
We’ve all but eliminated the traditional causes of accidents – like controlled flight into terrain, weather, and wind shear.
But we still have more work to do. Our quest for a perfect record may never be realized – but we can never abandon it as our goal.
We need to work together, as regulators and industry stakeholders from around the world, to identify areas of risk and mitigate them before incidents occur.
In the coming days, we’ll be covering a number of important topics for the future of our industry: from unmanned aircraft and commercial space, to data sharing and cyber security, to certification and compliance.
I encourage all of you to speak up and speak often. Sharing your own unique vantage point is the best way to help lift the global aviation industry to a new level of safety.
Thank you.
