FAA Issues New Safety Goals - NTSB Says Existing Risks Not Being Reduced

Air Safety Week, Nov 15, 2004

Target: ensure the safety of commercial space launches. More specifically, the target is twofold: no fatalities or serious injuries, and no significant property damage to the uninvolved public. The Flight Plan indicates that risk analysis tools are being refined. Of 13 FAA-licensed launches in fiscal 2004, the Flight Plan said, "Four involved Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne. These flights were the first licensed launches of a reusable launch vehicle, and the first manned commercial rocket launches. As part of the license evaluation process, [the FAA] reviewed the planned launch vehicle trajectories to ensure that the risk to buildings or other facilities would be minimized."

Target: enhance the safety of the air traffic system. Reduced to its essentials, this target involves mitigating the risk of midair collisions by lowering the number of air traffic control operational errors to 563 by fiscal 2009 (a 10 percent reduction). The FAA did not meet its fiscal 2004 target of 629 close calls, logging 637. That yearly figure masks the fact that each of the monthly targets for the last quarter of the year were not met. The September results included two separation losses as a result of a massive radio outage at the FAA's Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in Palmdale, Calif. (see ASW, Sept. 20).

Chew said, "We handled a lot more traffic than expected when the [original] plan was built." The volume has surged as operations return to their pre-9/11 level. Chew pointed out that the rate of operational errors decreased in fiscal 2004, and therefore the FAA is evaluating the use of rates as the measure of performance.

The FAA believes there are several reasons why the absolute number of high-threat operational errors is on the cusp of an unfortunate increase:

* Changes to the mix of aircraft in the fleet.

* The advent on Jan. 20, 2005, of domestic reduced vertical separation minima (DRVSM). This program will halve vertical separation to 1,000 feet at flight altitudes between 29,000 and 41,000 feet, from the 2,000-ft. vertical separation that applies presently (see ASW, Nov. 3, 2003). Two of the aircraft involved in the ARTCC radio outage of last September passed other aircraft at a vertical separation of 1,000 feet or less, triggering on-board alerts from traffic alerting and collision avoidance (TCAS) systems - which are not required for operations in DRVSM flight space.

* Implementation of an aviation safety action program (ASAP) for air traffic controllers, by which more controllers may be acknowledging errors through this confidential reporting system.

* The aging controller workforce and the entry of new hires. In other words, a combination of burnout and inexperience may soon contribute to an increase in controller errors.

The FAA background paper said the increase in expected operational errors "and the level of risk in the system will need to be further defined."

"The Office of Safety Services is currently reviewing operational error and performance data to formulate new performance targets that take into account changes in the NAS [national airspace system] since the original targets were established," the FAA paper said.