Analysis: FAA's Rush to Certify First VLJ

Air Safety Week, Sept 22, 2008

By Kathryn B. Creedy, Editor, Aviation Today's VLJ Report

More criticism was heaped on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation subcommittee held a hearing on certification of the first very light jet, the Eclipse 500.

The hearing, with testimony peppered with references to FAA management actions that were "highly unusual" and "rare," included remarks from Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel indicating that FAA test pilots said it was premature to grant a type certificate. The hearing also outlined how FAA management overruled the certification directorate employees, seemingly at the behest of a new, untried manufacturer in order to grant a type certificate by the end of the fiscal year. Indeed, said Scovel, the decision to issue the type certificate is "difficult to defend or explain."

Even so, no one at the hearing, including a senior National Transportation Safety Board staffer, said the Eclipse 500 is an unsafe aircraft. Instead, the hearing was all about whether the processes leading up to the aircraft's type certificate and the company's production certificate were appropriate, and, according to Scovel, they were not.

While FAA Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety Nick Sabatini and John Hickey, who heads FAA's aircraft certification directorate, defended the agency, there seemed to be little substance except they will learn from this experience and do better in the future.

"I believe raising the conflicts or questions to headquarters was the appropriate and right thing to do," said Sabatini, noting that the agency was criticized earlier this year when what were allegedly cozy relationships between local FAAers and American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were not raised to management.

Sabatini recounted the problems with the aircraft that arose during certification. These included aircraft flaps, stall warnings, screens blanking out, and most significantly, how and whether the avionics should have been approved. FAA pilots complained of too frequent stall warning as well as the blanking of the screens of the Electronic Flight Information System (EFIS). However, he noted other screens were available to give the pilot the information needed for safe flight.

"Finally, and perhaps most importantly, were the allegations that a portion of the aircraft's avionics system was certified to less than the applicable standards," he said, adding it was this that prompted the reassignment of director personnel off the Eclipse certification projects and the interjection of Director of the Aircraft Certification Service, John Hickey. He also said "the company suffered an overall lack of awareness of aircraft production best practices."

The Special Certification Review Team (SCRT), formed on the recommendation of the NTSB, chalked up the problem to communications issues while Eclipse testified that much of what was said at the hearing was full of mistakes and misperceptions. It must be noted that SCRTs are extremely rare and previous were prompted by fatal accidents with the ATR-72, the Boeing 737 rudder problem and the MU-2 icing issues - all very high profile aircraft problems.

The picture that emerged from last week's hearing was troubling, not only because it showed a manufacturer seemingly in control of the process with the cooperation of FAA management, but it revealed a troubled manufacturer that may have violated federal aviation regulations, falsified documents and failed to take the corrective actions ordered by the FAA. At the very least, the IG report and testimonies of those of directorate employees involved will give liability lawyers a field day should there be a fatal accident.

Directorate employees were concerned about the personnel turnover at the manufacturer. "During this program the FAA dealt with at least four different 'chiefs' of flight test or similarly titled persons," said David Downey, who was manager of the Rotorcraft Directorate responsible for certification of southwest-based companies like Eclipse, but who has since left the agency to become vice president-flight safety for Bell Helicopter-Textron.

Downey said the doubt by directorate personnel was prompted by Eclipse actions, that set the stage for contentious relations. "EAC had over the previous years, established a legacy of not meeting its commitments to the FAA," said Downey. "EAC rarely submitted a report on time, yet had the gall to drop a report on the FAA and want approval immediately. Further, this was a company that wanted to gain its engineering approval - aka TC, its production approval or PC, its Repair Station Certificate and have aircraft awarded their Standard Airworthiness Certification all within 15 days.

"As one company test pilot shared with me, his integrity test light had been pushed way too many times," he continued. "The quality system at Eclipse was in disarray. The personnel turnover, lack of personnel, pressures to have airplanes ready to sell post-TC award kept the company in a state of constant change. It was apparent to FAA personnel that Organizational Design Airworthiness Representatives (ODAR) personnel were being harassed and hassled for trying to meet the FAA standards."