FAA Establishes the Office of Investigations and Professional Responsibility

Quiet Skies: Universities to Research Way to Reduce Aviation Noise

Sun ’n Fun – Meet the FAA Forum remarks

Hello Sun ’n Fun!

It’s great to be back here at the Aerospace Expo, and especially great to see so many young people here. 

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to have a front row seat to watch aviation evolve. But for me, and I think for all of us, the biggest changes have come in the past few years.

Here at the expo, there are hundreds of aircraft in all shapes and sizes. And new systems and new vehicles are developing at a rapid pace. I know Sun ’n Fun will be the place where people come to see the next generation of flying.

Change is a constant in aerospace, and we’re embracing all of this change at the FAA.

We’re becoming more agile, to enable all of the awesome innovation, but making sure it’s always done safely.

Safety is the FAA’s highest priority. And if you’re a pilot, or you work in aviation, then safety must always be your first priority too.

I encourage the pilots here to see the FAA’s From the Flight Deck video series on YouTube. There are more than 115 videos about runway safety at different airports.

These videos can make a pilot aware of a problem before you even leave the house. And when you’re aware, you can be more careful.

In fact, we just held a live GA Pilot workshop last week. So check that out on our YouTube channel.

Safety will be our north star, as we work to integrate the innovation we’re seeing in aviation these days.

As I mentioned earlier, a new era of aviation is taking off. What once seemed only real in movies or cartoons is happening now. 

Things like electric air taxis, drones, and spacecraft. This new generation of aircraft must maintain the high level of safety that defines aviation today. 

For air taxis, the FAA has the regulations in place to allow manufacturers to achieve our safety standards in innovative ways. We are also working to write the standards that air taxi pilots must meet to operate aircraft that may have flying characteristics of both helicopters and airplanes. 

It’s all part of the exciting world we call Advanced Air Mobility, or AAM.

We’re working with industry to test and research vertiports, and we’re coming to expos like these to connect with GA pilots and talk about how AAM might impact your flying.

We want to get your input as we integrate AAM into the airspace system, especially during these early phases.

But this is some exciting stuff. And with all of this activity happening, we’re looking for new people to be part of the aviation community. 

The retirements caused by the pandemic throughout the industry, plus all the new kinds of aircraft being developed, are all coming together to create a lot of career opportunity in aviation.

We want to see people to take advantage of these opportunities. We need a diverse, next generation workforce, with people from all backgrounds.  

I’ll tell you, one of the most satisfying parts of my job is meeting young people, like here at Sun ’n Fun, who want to start a career in aviation.

They do a great job highlighting careers here. The career fair has over 20 employers. The FAA is there too, so make sure you stop by our table!

And I love how the Junior ACEs program gives kids a chance to learn about flying, with a bunch of hands-on projects.

We’re doing something very similar at the FAA. It’s called the Airport Design Challenge. This is where kids get to use the Minecraft video game to design airports. Like the one here in Lakeland, or one close to where you live.

The new season starts two days from now, Saturday, April 1. This is no April Fool’s joke! So check our website on Saturday!

And we have some other cool stuff happening too. For the second year in a row, the FAA awarded $10 million in grants for educational institutions to develop future pilots and aviation maintenance technicians. And we plan to start a third round of grants later this year!

We love partnering with Sun ’n Fun to reach more young people, and we look forward to collaborating in more creative ways to recruit that diverse, next generation workforce.

I feel such a sense of excitement and wonder when I come to Sun ’n Fun.

I love seeing vintage aircraft alongside the new entrants. It shows just how far we’ve come in aviation.

Let’s keep pushing further, and allow for the magic of aviation to unfold all the while continuing to keep aviation safe and sustainable.

Thank you for having me in the sunshine state at the Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo.

FAA Gives Kids Opportunity to Design Airports

FAA Summer 2023 NYC Operational Summit Readout

InfoShare Meeting, Baltimore, MD – Opening Remarks

Good morning, it’s good to see everyone.

Thank you to the more than 1,300 people here for participating in this week’s meeting. InfoShare has grown tremendously since its inception.

Back in 2007, I was one of the original signatories calling for us to bring ASIAS into InfoShare meetings. We wanted to have a protected means of bringing together safety data from across the industry to identify and understand the risks in the system. 

Since that time, we’ve made so much progress.

ASAP and other data collection efforts have matured. 

SMS programs have matured.

And we’ve built on the trust and transparency between government and industry.

Together, we’ve reduced the fatality risk in US commercial aviation by 95 percent over the past 25 years. And we’ve made significant strides across all other sectors in aviation. As a result, we’ve made flying the safest mode of transportation in the world.

But I haven’t told you anything you don’t already know.

The question is – where do we go next?

Because it’s no longer good enough to say that zero is the only the acceptable number for fatal accidents. 

Going forward, zero has to be the only acceptable number for serious incidents and close calls.

We are at an inflection point right now, with new and different stressors affecting the system.

Air travel is coming back in a big way since the pandemic. But the long layoff, coupled with the increased technical nature of our systems, might have caused some professionals to lose some of that muscle memory. 

On top of that, we’re contending with the loss of experience, as the pandemic forced many seasoned professionals into retirement.

We’re also seeing new and recent entrants like: eVTOLs, 100+ space launches, and various kinds of drones, all of which will continue to make our complex system even more complex to manage.

But how do we make the system safer when we have so few dots to connect? 

Simply put: we need to share more types of data, in greater amounts, at a faster rate than before.

And we have to continue our work to become predictive, not just preventive, when it comes to addressing risk.

The challenge for us is – when we’ve produced the kind of record we have, it’s easy to get comfortable. To get complacent. To think we have a handle on things.

There’s a natural tendency for organizations like ours to get set in our ways. Or to use a statistical metaphor, to “regress to the mean.” 

But the recent series of safety incidents remind us that we don’t have the luxury of complacency. As I noted at the FAA’s Safety Summit two weeks ago – vigilance can never take a day off.                                         

Today, when the safety data gets through all of the gatekeepers, it could be weeks before the system knows about it. By that time, the risk picture could have changed.

As a global aviation community, we have to be able to access the data in real-time. This will give us a more realistic picture of the risk lurking on any given day.

It reminds me of when we transitioned from radar to ADS-B. Radar updates every six seconds. When we see the radar blip on the screen, it tells us the aircraft is somewhere within six seconds of that spot.

ADS-B updates every second. So it’s a more accurate picture of where the aircraft actually is.

It’s the same way here. When we can access safety data in real-time, and access multiple sets of data, we have a more accurate picture of how safe the system actually is. 

In fact, this was one of the key recommendations that came out of the safety summit – sharing safety information in real-time at all levels of the industry.

I know what your concerns are. We have to protect the data, make sure it won’t be used in a punitive way. And we will continue to protect the data.

However, we must set a place at the table for everyone who can help us make the next big leaps in safety risk mitigation. 

Who are the entities that can help us?

We need everyone in the industry engaged, from the C-suite on down. Everyone in our industry has to be all in. 

And with SMS recently expanded to more segments of the industry, we will have access to more data. 

That’s great. But what about the new entrants? Do we have their voices at the table?

Our success in the future will be a function of how well we can anticipate what’s coming next, and be ready to identify and mitigate that risk.

But let’s also keep in mind that the people who can help us the most, may not be in our industry. And may not be in the room today.

At the Summit, an airline safety professional knew of a graduate student who was doing some interesting work in flight safety risk. He used various data to create a model that predicted runway incursions with 85 percent accuracy.

We have to make our data available faster so that experts like these can offer us solutions, while making sure the data is always protected.

We’ve dealt with trust barriers before. When ASIAS started, there were operators who were reluctant to submit data unless other operators were sharing it too. But we overcame that.

An operator needs a list of leading indicators that show how close they came to the edge of an accident on a particular day.

We can do that when we have a model that can predict problems before they become close calls. 

As a hard core Star Trek fan, I just want to call out “Computer” and get the data I want right away. That was one of the first depictions of voice-activated technologies. 

One possible model could be like the LAANC system that provides drone pilots with access to operate in controlled airspace. Pilots can receive their authorization in near-real time.

That’s a thought. But the goal must be to create this kind of model for real-time sharing of safety data, while ensuring its protection.

We’ve become really great at eliminating accidents. Nearly 15 years without a plane crash. Now, let’s develop a data sharing model that makes us really great at preventing serious incidents and close calls.

There’s a book by James Reason, titled The Human Contribution: Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries. He made a point that stuck with me. He said he’d love for there to be a time when things are so safe that there is no longer a need for a heroic intervention.

Our goal must be to build an aerospace system that is so resilient, that heroic intervention is almost never necessary.

I’m looking forward to the Safety Call to Action panel coming up shortly, and we’ll discuss more about key themes that came out of the Summit. 

So let’s have a stimulating meeting this week. 

FAA Efforts to Keep Air Travel Safe, Smooth in NYC This Summer

FAA Urges Airlines, Pilots and Others to Take Key Safety Actions

Following the FAA's Safety Summit last week the agency issued a safety alert with specific steps it wants airlines, pilots and others to take.

The FAA is urging the following actions:

• Ensure pilots and flight attendants have the same understanding of what “sterile flight deck” means and the risks associated with extraneous communication during this time. 
• Emphasize importance of awareness of the...

Aeronautical Repair Station Association – Keynote Remarks

Thanks, Sarah [MacLeod], and good morning, everyone.
    
You already know I was a line pilot. I’m rotor rated. I flew for the Army. 
    
And I know what you know – that a lot of the attention in this industry is centered on pilots and what’s happening on the flight deck. No secret here: it’s because pilots are out front and visible.
    
But let me say this: as a pilot, I know that the unsung heroes that keep the aircraft in the air, are the people in this very room. 
    
As a matter of fact, I can say that pilots are only as strong as the maintenance professionals who stand, not behind them, but alongside them. 
    
So let me start by thanking all of you — our aviation maintenance technicians, our repair stations, and our maintenance schools — for everything you do to uphold the strong safety culture we have in aviation, and for making this industry as safe as it can possibly be.
    
As many of you know, I recently issued a safety Call to Action to examine our system’s structure to ensure it fits the needs of today and the future. 

We have the safest aviation system in the world, but we can never take safety for granted or risk complacency. The incidents we’ve seen recently demand we take a closer look—and we must act now.

At yesterday’s Safety Summit, we gathered our community to do just that — to ask the hard questions:  Do we need to do something different? Are we missing something? What do we need to improve?

We’ve done deep dives before. That’s a fact. And we can—and will—do it again because safety is a mission that we can never declare accomplished.  On the contrary, safety is a mission that demands constant attention and constant improvement.   
  
The aviation maintenance industry has a unique perspective on the safety of our system, and we need your insight to better identify and pro-act on risks that may be lurking.
    
We have 72 repair stations that have voluntarily adopted Safety Management System programs to develop organizational best practices for safety risk management. 

To date, 19 of those stations have already been recognized by the FAA as having a fully-functioning SMS — and we are currently considering whether or not SMS will be required for this segment of the industry going forward.
    
We’ve asked the public to weigh in on this question by way of a recently published Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requiring SMS for commuter and on-demand operations, and air tour operators. We look forward to receiving feedback.
    
Our strong safety culture is something that we must pass on to the next generation of professionals in this field. 
    
Simply put, we need to attract new people to the aviation industry.
    
Scheduled flights are coming back to pre-COVID levels. That’s a good thing. But as you are aware, we also have 20,000 fewer AMTs than we did before the pandemic. 
    
And the demand for qualified AMTs is only increasing. We have to rebuild the pipeline.
    
On top of that, the jobs associated with our industry are changing too. As we incorporate new technologies and new concepts into our airspace system — unmanned aircraft, advanced air mobility concepts, commercial space transportation, etc. — we must also take into account that new skills will be required to operate and maintain aircraft of the future.
    
When you have a recruiting challenge as big as we do, we have to cast a broad net for applicants.
    
The FAA has learned a few things about what works. For one, we have to reach kids at early ages and inspire them in ways that will make them consider our industry as an option.  If we don’t generate early excitement, we’ll lose this generation to other industries.
    
My colleague Sean Torpey will discuss more about how we’re reaching kids early at the Young at Heart panel later this afternoon, and he’ll also discuss ways that we can all collaborate in this area.

Just as important at getting students’ attention is keeping them interested in high school and beyond — and I’m glad to report that we are doing our part at the FAA. 

We recently awarded $5 million in aviation maintenance technical worker workforce grants – that’s a mouthful! – to 11 organizations. These grants build on the $5 million we awarded previously, and will fund programs that generate interest and prepare students to pursue careers in aviation maintenance, and are one of the ways that the FAA is building its own pipeline of maintenance professionals.
    
Some of the programs these grants support focus on outreach to high school students from underrepresented communities. Others help military members and veterans transition into AMT careers. They all help attract future technicians to our industry — and that is good news.
    
We have also learned from experience that any program we develop is only as successful as our ability to attract attention to it. We need to be creative in order to reach this tech-savvy future AMT workforce that grew up online.  We need to seek them out in digital spaces such as social media and gaming platforms. 
    
We can learn from the success of the FAA’s recent air traffic controller hiring campaign. The “Level Up” campaign got the word out by having controllers share their stories during Instagram Live conversations, on Twitter, and on other interactive digital platforms.  

We actively sought out gamers who were likely to have some of the same skills required of controllers.  And we worked hard to attract applications from women, minorities, and individuals from underrepresented communities.  

These efforts resulted in 58,000 applicants, more than five times the number we expected, and from a much more diverse applicant pool. 
    
We want to see the same thing happen for AMTs, and we are eager to partner with you in creative ways to make it happen.
    
And we are looking for ways the FAA’s reauthorization can help us cast our net wider and in new directions to recruit the future workforce.
    
As the next generation comes in, their first experience of our safety culture will be during their training. I know this well, having been a training captain myself.
    
We have to continue to innovate training methods, so that we’re meeting industry standards, and engaging the highly-digitally-literate next generation workforce.   
    
This past September, an FAA interim rule went into effect requiring AMT schools to modernize training to meet the industry’s evolving needs. This rule provides flexibility to technical schools to develop and update their training content and course delivery options. 
    
And schools can increase access by providing training at additional locations, even outside of the United States. We’re getting positive feedback from you on the new rule.
  
We are also looking for ways the FAA and industry can collaborate on joint training. This will require we work together to define common performance outcomes and assessments — but from my personal experience, I know there is great benefit to opportunities that help the FAA and industry better understand each other’s perspectives. 
    
Again, I thank ARSA and everyone across the repair station community. Let’s continue to work together to strengthen training, improve workforce recruitment, and most importantly, to strengthen the safety culture.
    
As we do that, we’ll look back with pride on having made aviation better, and safer, for decades to come.
 

Readout from the FAA Aviation Safety Summit Breakout Panels