Aviation Safety

Management Improvement Needed in FAA's Airworthiness Directive Program Gao ID: RCED-90-94 February 16, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) oversight of its Airworthiness Directive Program, focusing on: (1) whether FAA oversight is sufficient to determine airlines' compliance with directives; and (2) how FAA safety information could be used to make the program more effective.

GAO found that: (1) the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) accident investigations and FAA special inspections have shown significant noncompliance with airworthiness directives; (2) during routine inspections, FAA personnel were not always verifying compliance, since FAA inspection guidelines allowed inspectors too much discretion; (3) because inspectors reported only noncompliance, FAA did not have information on the number of program requirements applied by inspectors or the extent of compliance throughout the airline industry; and (4) FAA was not effectively using safety data to focus its limited resources on high-risk areas during routine inspections.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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