Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
With the launch of a long-awaited airline flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) programme, the US Federal Aviation Administration has guaranteed that data obtained from aircraft flight data recorders (FDRs) will not be used against carriers or pilots.
So far the programme has been limited to a three-year demonstration involving United Airlines, Continental Airlines, US Airways and Alaska Airlines. The data is collected by digital FDRs and can be analysed for anomalies or exceedances using specialist software installed on a PC. Now the FAA hopes that other airlines, encouraged by the trial, will voluntarily set up their own FDR-based FOQA system, but eventual rulemaking is forecast. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey says: "The adoption of this policy on a broader scale can raise the safety bar even further for the travelling public."
Pilots and airline executives have been nervous about the potential abuse of FOQA data by regulators to prosecute and by lawyers to establish liability in the wake of an accident or incident. For that reason US carriers have shunned the concept while many non-US airlines have adopted it voluntarily, deriving aircraft health monitoring benefits and operational advantage through recognising event trends specific, for example, to a region, an approach, an airport, or a runway. The concept, technology and practice is well established, having been pioneered by the UK Civil Aviation Authority since the 1970s.
Garvey says the data will not be used for enforcement actions "except in egregious cases." She says the demonstration, which has given the FAA de-identified data, has already yielded safety initiatives. The data has been used to improve approaches at a dozen airports worldwide, and it has documented excessive take-off angles and unstable landing approaches.
The data, says the FAA, can also help reduce operating costs through the monitoring of fuel efficiency and engine condition. FOQA is intended to provide information to identify needed improvements in flight crew performance, training programmes, air traffic control procedures and aircraft flight operations.
Source: Flight International
