Aviation Safety

International standards stipulate that the country of registration assumes primary responsibility for overseeing its aircraft. Several factors, however, limit the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ability to fulfill this requirement for all U.S.-registered planes. Because FAA does not track the leasing of U.S.-registered aircraft among U.S. and foreign carriers and has not developed clear guidance on the frequency of inspection of foreign-operated, U.S.-registered aircraft, it cannot plan and perform timely inspections of aircraft returning to U.S. operation after having been leased to a foreign carrier. Also, because FAA cannot verify whether foreign carriers have FAA-approved maintenance programs for U.S.-registered aircraft and some of the planes operate in countries that fail to meet international standards, U.S. passengers have little assurance that such aircraft are safe to fly on. FAA also has not developed an effective system to track and verify foreign corporations' compliance with a requirement that 60 percent of their U.S.-registered aircraft's flight hours be conducted in the United States--a measure intended to discourage foreign aircraft owners from using the U.S. aircraft registration system as a flag of convenience. Although FAA has had the opportunity to raise aircraft registration fees, FAA has not increased these fees since 1964. As a result, FAA has lost about $6.5 million in additional revenue since 1968.

GAO found that: (1) FAA has not inspected 32 percent of the 517 U.S.-registered aircraft operated outside of the United States; (2) FAA does not have the staff to inspect foreign-operated, U.S.-registered aircraft outside of the United States, but it plans to increase its overseas safety staff; (3) leasing arrangements have complicated FAA inspections, since FAA does not track foreign carriers' overseas operations or require a maintenance check when U.S.-registered aircraft transfer from foreign to U.S. operation; (4) FAA does not keep historical records on whether foreign carriers have FAA-approved maintenance programs; (5) FAA does not verify whether U.S.-based foreign corporations comply with the 60-percent in-country flight requirement, and does not have a basis to suspend or revoke an aircraft's registration or withdraw the carrier's authority to operate in the United States if it fails to comply; (6) FAA is attempting to recover registration processing costs by applying user fees; (7) FAA has not raised its registration fee since 1964 and does not require annual registration renewal; (8) FAA has the authority to raise its registration fee, but it cannot raise fees until it has issued regulations implementing the FAA Drug Enforcement Assistance Act; and (9) debates between FAA and drug enforcement agencies on aircraft registration renewals have delayed regulation implementation.

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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