Aviation Safety

The Safer Skies initiative addresses the safety problems that have contributed to fatal accidents in the past. In conjunction with other safety programs, it can be expected to reduce the fatal accident rate and thus enhance the safety of the nation's air passengers. In commercial aviation, the initiative addresses safety problems that accounted for more than three-quarters of the fatal accidents between 1998 and 1997. Other FAA initiatives are addressing additional safety problems, which should complement Safer Skies' efforts to meet the goal of an 80-percent reduction in the fatal accident rate for commercial aviation. For general aviation, the target goal is a 20-percent reduction in the fatal accident rate. So far, safety improvement efforts by FAA and Safer Skies have focused on reducing the causes of past accidents and incidents, which may not be entirely predictive of future ones. Studying growth and technological changes in the aviation industry can help anticipate and prevent safety problems that are likely to arrive from the changes. Safer Skies teams have made the most progress in selecting interventions to address safety problems when they have been able to build on previous studies for which widely supported recommendations already existed. However, the implementation of Safer Skies' interventions is not assured because the tracking system for commercial aviation is not significantly detailed. Because most interventions are in the early implementation stages, little progress has been made in evaluating their effectiveness. Only one of the teams has developed a performance measure. GAO found three coordination problems that could undermine the implementation and evaluation of Safer Skies' interventions: (1) Skepticism exists among participants as to whether FAA will continue to fund interventions. (2) If funding is limited, how will available resources be reprioritized? (3) Safer Skies, FAA, and the Department of Transportation have not agreed on how they will measure progress in achieving the accident reduction goal for commercial aviation.

GAO noted that: (1) the Safer Skies initiative addresses the safety problems that have contributed to fatal accidents in the past, and in conjunction with other safety problems, it can be expected to reduce the fatal accident rate and thus enhance the safety of the nation's air passengers; (2) in commercial aviation, the initiative addresses safety problems that accounted for over three-quarters of the fatal accidents in those operations in 1988-1997; (3) in general aviation, the Safer Skies initiative plans to address safety problems that appear to be the most common causes of fatal accidents; (4) the initiative has adopted a less aggressive goal in general aviation of reducing the number of fatal accidents to 350 in 2007, which represents about a 20-percent reduction; (5) the initiative addressed four safety problems in cabin safety; (6) to date, safety improvement efforts by FAA and the initiative have focused on reducing the causes of past accidents and incidents, which may not be entirely predictive of future ones; (7) as of April 1, 2000, Safer Skies teams had started work on 13 of the 16 safety problems and had begun implementing interventions for 5 of these--2 in commercial aviation and 3 in cabin safety; (8) since most of the interventions developed under the Safer Skies initiative are in early implementation stages, little progress has been made in evaluating their effectiveness; (9) of the five Safer Skies teams that have begun implementing interventions, only one has developed a performance measure to evaluate whether the interventions it has selected are helping to reduce the safety problems that cause fatal accidents and are worth what they cost; (10) FAA has coordinated extensively with aviation experts from industry, other federal government agencies, and its own staff, but GAO's review identified three coordination problems that could undermine the implementation and evaluation of Safer Skies' interventions; (11) although FAA officials have repeatedly committed to funding interventions agreed upon by all parties, skepticism still exists among some participants as to whether this commitment can or will be honored; (12) furthermore, if funding is limited, it remains unclear what process will be used to reprioritize available resources to ensure funding for interventions that emerge later but have greater potential for reducing the fatal accident rate; and (13) the Safer Skies initiative, FAA, and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have not agreed on how they will measure progress in achieving the accident reduction goal for commercial aviation.

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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