Summary
One key way that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes air travel safer is to inspect the manufacture, operation, and maintenance of aircraft that fly in the United States. To better direct its resources, FAA is shifting from an inspection process that relied on spot-checks of compliance with regulations to one that evaluates operating procedures and analyzes inspection data to identify areas that pose the most risk to safety (called system safety). While FAA believes the new approach requires some technical knowledge of aircraft, Congress and GAO have long-standing concerns over whether FAA inspectors have enough technical knowledge to effectively identify risks. GAO reviewed the extent that FAA follows effective management practices in ensuring that inspectors receive up-to-date technical training. In addition, GAO is reporting on technical training that the aviation industry provides to FAA.
For its technical training, FAA follows many of the effective management practices for training that GAO has advocated and is improving its efforts in others. In planning, FAA has linked technical training efforts to its goal of safer air travel and has identified technical proficiencies needed to improve safety inspectors' performance in meeting this goal. It plans to better relate training to job tasks and is in the early stages of developing an approach to set priorities for new courses and course revisions. In developing technical courses, FAA has a structured process aimed at ensuring that courses meet performance objectives. It allows inspectors and others to identify the need for new training courses and to aid in developing courses. FAA is developing an initiative to systematically identify specific technical competencies and training requirements for inspectors. In delivering courses, FAA offers a wide array of technical courses from which inspectors can select to meet job needs. From GAO's survey of FAA's inspectors, we estimate that only about half think that they have the technical knowledge needed for their jobs. FAA officials told us that inspectors' negative views stem from their wanting to acquire proficiencies that are not as crucial in a system safety environment. GAO also estimates that 28 percent of inspectors believe that they get the technical training that they request. However, FAA's records show that FAA approves about 90 percent of these requests, and inspectors are making good progress in receiving training. Over half of the inspectors have completed at least 75 percent of technical training that FAA considers essential. In evaluating courses, FAA continuously assesses technical training through end-of-course evaluations and surveys of inspectors and supervisors. FAA is developing an approach to measure the impact of training on FAA's mission goals, such as reducing accidents. This is a difficult task.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change
from "In process" to "Implemented" or "Not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director:
Team:
Phone:
Gerald L. Dillingham
Government Accountability Office: Physical Infrastructure
(202) 512-4803
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: Regarding technical training, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator, to ensure that inspector technical training needs are identified and met in a timely manner, to systematically assess inspectors' technical training needs, increase inspector involvement in the decision-making process for assessing the need for courses, including the need for more training for maintenance and avionics inspectors to familiarize them with recent changes in aviation technology, and ensure the technical curriculum meets those needs. The Administrator should also take the actions needed, including developing guidelines for inspectors, supervisors, and training managers, to ensure that technical training is requested and delivered closer to the time it is needed to help inspectors perform their jobs.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Implemented
Comments: For the first part of this recommendation on a systematic assessment of needs, FAA AFS is implementing its curriculum transformation plan. FAA AFS formed a curriculum oversight team (COT) to identify inspector competency needs. For the second part, FAA AFS has taken actions to deliver training in a more timely manner, such as developing new web-based courses that inspectors can complete when the training is needed.
Recommendation: Regarding technical training, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator, with a view toward maximizing the contributions of training to furthering FAA's safety mission, to determine the feasibility of developing measures of the impact of inspector training, including technical training, on achieving organizational goals.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Implemented
Comments: FAA conducted an analysis that explored different methods to measure training's impact on achieving organizational goals and documented its efforts by sending the analysis called "Feasibility Study: Measuring the Impact of Training on Organizational Goals".
Recommendation: To gain better acceptance from the inspector workforce for changes being made and planned for the inspector training curriculum, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to increase the focus of its training efforts on how system safety/risk management will improve inspections and aviation safety.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Implemented
Comments: To better educate staff on its risk management approach, FAA has produced 2 DVD videos on the FAA risk management/system safety program called ATOS. In addition, FAA is conducting 13 courses on ATOS between October 19, 2007, and July 11, 2008. This course includes a section on the importance of system safety. FAA has also formed a System Approach for Safety Oversight (SASO) Program Office to provide change management support during the transition to ATOS 1.2, when FAA will extend the use of risk-based certification and surveillance to all Part 121 air carriers. As part of its goal of building stakeholder support for ATOS, SASO conducted focus groups where field staff could voice concerns and provide the field office's perspective on what a successful implementation of ATOS would look like.
Recommendation: The Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to ensure that all existing and future memoranda of understanding pertaining to training received in exchange for in-kind services contain language stating that the agreement does not preclude FAA from fulfilling its oversight and enforcement role.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: In process
Comments: FAA is revisiting the issue of accepting training for in-kind services and expects to provide more rigor and more guidance on when it is appropriate. FAA expects to revise its handbook and have revised policies in place by January 2009.
Recommendation: To preclude situations where the provision of free training by the aviation industry may create a conflict of interest or result in the appearance of such a conflict, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to review its policies on the acceptance of free training accepted from the aviation industry to ensure they are understood by inspectors, supervisors, managers, and regional counsel; implement a process for monitoring field office compliance with these policies; and follow up on any noncompliance.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: In process
Comments: FAA is revisiting the issue of accepting training for in-kind services and expects to provide more rigor and more guidance on when it is appropriate. FAA expects to revise its handbook and have revised policies in place by January 2009.
