Aviation Safety: Safer Skies Initiative Has Taken Initial Steps to Reduce Accident Rates by 2007

FAA concurred with this recommendation. FAA is working through the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) to refine the process used to track progress in reducing the fatal accident rate in commercial aviation. The process will develop measures to predict the effectiveness that an intervention or set of interventions will have on the accident rate. FAA is actively considering using accident precursors to assess the performance of interventions and is identifying available and needed data to measure precursors. While data availability and quality remain a significant barrier to implementing some performance measures, efforts using flight data recorders and other partnership programs should help. This effort is ongoing with no estimated completion date. The intervention implementation team has developed a measure of predicted effectiveness for each intervention. This measure predicts the effect an intervention, or set of interventions, will have on the accident rate. The team will predict the result of 50 percent implementation, and 50 percent effectiveness of the intervention(s) adopted against the baseline accidents. The Joint Steering Committee established a working group to improve the type, quality, and quantity of general aviation data. FAA will also use other methods to improve data availability and quality using partnership programs such as the Aviation Safety Action Plan.

FAA concurred with this recommendation. FAA outlined a basic process for the executive council's decisions on which interventions to fund. The Safer Skies Executive Committee, comprised of FAA executives, will provide executive-level oversight to identify and implement FAA commercial aviation and general aviation safety agenda initiatives within their respective organizations. They will ensure coordinated implementation, both within their own organizations and across all affected parts of the FAA. This committee provides the vehicles for that integrated approach.

FAA concurred with this recommendation to use departures as the activity measure for calculating the fatal accident rate for commercial aviation across DOT, FAA, and the Safer Skies commercial aviation steering committee. FAA's Office of Regulation and Certification's Performance Plan for fiscal year 2001, states that: beginning in fiscal year 2001, the activity measure upon which the accident rate is calculated will be departures, not flight hours as in the past. The Department will continue to use departures as the activity measure for calculating the fatal accident rate for commercial aviation. While consistency has been achieved between the measures used by DOT and FAA, the Safer Skies commercial aviation steering committee also needs to agree to use the same measure before the recommendation can be closed.

FAA concurred with this recommendation. FAA outlined a basic process for the executive council's decisions on which interventions to fund. The Safer Skies Executive Committee, comprised of FAA executives, will provide executive-level oversight to identify and implement FAA commercial aviation and general aviation safety agenda initiatives within their respective organizations. They will ensure a coordinated implementation, both within their own organizations and across all affected parts of FAA. Members of the Commercial Aviation Steering Committee also are empowered to vote on implementing interventions on behalf of their constituents.

FAA concurred in part with this recommendation. FAA believes that its current general aviation goal is a realistic one. However, FAA agreed that as the agency has improved data, it will reassess the goal and interim goals for general aviation. FAA has formed the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee to improve data quality and timeliness of estimates of general aviation activity. FAA described this committee's efforts as long term. FAA believes that reducing fatal accidents to 350 by 2007, is an appropriate goal. FAA agreed that as it gets improved data, it will reassess the goal and interim goals at a later date.

FAA believes that reducing fatal accidents to 350 by 2007, is an appropriate goal. The general aviation community and the FAA have established a General Aviation Data Improvement Team. This team is committed to improving the data in order to set a more challenging goal for reducing the number of fatal general aviation accidents by 2007. It was agreed that, as the team has improved data, it would reassess the goal and interim goals at a later date. GAO continues to believe that the current goal of 350 fatal accidents by 2007, is a modest rather than a challenging goal. FAA has retained this goal but may reconsider it in the future. This action is not fully responsive to the recommendation.

FAA concurred with this recommendation. FAA's response stated that the general aviation community is extensively represented on the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee and will be fully aware of the interventions as they are identified. FAA plans to use both its own resources and those of general aviation groups to communicate with general aviation pilots. FAA said that as the steering committee reaches that stage of its activities, specific plans will be laid out to maximize information dissemination. FAA also said that the Joint Steering Committee developed a communications strategy that was implemented on December 1, 2000, whereby those represented on the committee will distribute safety information when approved by the committee. This will focus on the need for aviators to develop and expand a strong cultural approach to safety. Safety culture will be a theme in association editorials, seminars, and informational materials.

FAA concurred with this recommendation. FAA is working with the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) to refine the overall intervention tracking process. CAST established a special group, the joint Implementation Management Team (JIMT) to formulate tracking procedures and actually track intervention implementation. Currently FAA has three methods for tracking the effectiveness of interventions: level of plan compliance, predicted effectiveness, and risk management. As of October 6, 2000, the following functions were added to the Joint Steering Committee charter: the FAA lead organization will monitor milestone completion dates identified in the FAA's internal implementation plans and report back to the committee periodically, and periodic reports on Safer Skies' effectiveness, including recommendations for corrective actions and/or intervention augmentation, will be sent to the FAA Administrator as needed.