Safety Recommendation A-01-073

The FAA took the recommended actions when, in 2003, a new version of the GA Survey that collected more detailed information on public aircraft flight activity was pre-tested, but later abandoned the redesigned survey because the complexity of the redesigned instrument had resulted in respondent confusion and errors, yielding poor results. Although the need addressed by these recommendations continues, we acknowledge the problems that the FAA encountered when it took the recommended actions. Consequently, Safety Recommendations A 01-73 and 78 are classified CLOSED—RECONSIDERED.

-From Michael P. Huerta, Administrator: These recommendations were issued to improve the FAA's annual General Aviation and Air Taxi Activity Survey, now called the General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey (GA Survey). The need for these improvements was principally identified through the work of the General Aviation Data Improvement Team (GADIT), which was a sub-team of the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC), and was co-chaired by the National Transportation Safety Board, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and FAA.

The GAJSC was formed as part of the Safer Skies Focused Safety Agenda (initially launched in 1998), and is the primary vehicle for government-industry cooperation, communication, and coordination on GA accident mitigation. In order to establish goals for accident reduction and to measure the effectiveness of accident mitigations, GA accidents needed to be measured as a rate instead of simple accident counts. The GA Survey is the primary vehicle to measure GA activity, but confidence in its accuracy, at the time the recommendations were issued, was low.

In order to implement the improvements envisioned by the GADIT, in 2004, the responsibility of the GA Survey moved to the FAA's Office of Accident Investigation (now the Office of Accident Investigation and Prevention), funding was increased, and the sample size increased from 30,000 respondents in 2003 to 84,500 respondents in 2004. These changes allowed the survey to target segments of GA for which confidence in the data was particularly low. The improvements were made through annual revisions to the survey in coordination with the Board's staff through the GADIT, which they continued to co-chair.

Results from the revised 2004-2010 surveys show consistently improved data, with much higher confidence among both government and industry users. As noted throughout tlus response, many changes to the GA Survey began in 2004. We continue to improve upon these initial changes, as we have for the past nine-years, to make the survey more accurate. As additional data requirements arise, revisions will continue in coordination with the Board.

Since 1999, the GA Survey asked about Public Use (PU) in a separate question so that PU hours flown can be reported independently from other use categories. This change more clearly distinguished between government aircraft operations that qualify for statutory public aircraft status and those that do not.

The FAA has stated that it agrees that improvements should be made to the General Aviation, Air Taxi and Avionics Survey (GAATAS) and that it is working with a group of industry and government representatives (including Safety Board representatives) to produce a detailed implementation plan to address the issues noted by the safety recommendations. The Safety Board appreciates the FAA's efforts to improve the activity survey form and is committed to working with you to make the improvements.

The FAA has stated that it will meet with the General Services Administration (GSA) to harmonize the definitions of public use aircraft and public use flight operations with GSA data collection activities. The Safety Board would appreciate having the opportunity to review the changes agreed upon by both agencies.

Regarding Safety Recommendation A-01-75, the FAA states that it agrees with the intent of this recommendation and in January 2002 began efforts to establish a two-person team of legal instruments examiners to improve currency and accuracy of the data in the Civil Aircraft Registry. The FAA reports that the legal instruments examiners will focus on the aircraft in "sale reported" and "registration pending" status, as well as aircraft with a status code denoting "non-useable addresses." The Safety Board concurs that these potential improvements are an important undertaking, and looks forward to reviewing the progress of this action.

Accordingly, Safety Recommendations A-01-73 thru -80 are classified OPEN -- ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE pending completion of the recommended actions.

Letter Mail Controlled 01/29/2002 4:07:36 PM MC# 2020092 - From Jane F. Garvey, Administrator: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) agrees that improvements should be made to the General Aviation, Air Taxi and Avionics Survey (GMTAS). The FM has been working through the past year with a group of government and industry representatives (including representatives from the Safety Board) to identify and prioritize specific improvements to the survey instrument and survey processes. This project is being conducted under the sponsorship of the Safer Skies initiative, and the working team is known as the General Aviation Data Improvement Team (GADIT).

The current status of this project is that the FAA, government, and industry representatives from the GADIT have submitted recommendations for improving the GMTAS to the Joint Steering Committee for Safer Skies. The combined GADIT has subsequently developed some preliminary implementation approaches, with accompanying high-level resource estimates for accomplishing the various items. The FAA will seek feedback on the selected approaches from the Safer Skies Joint Steering Committee at its January meeting. After that, the FAA will determine specific resource requirements and sources for those resources.

A detailed implementation plan will be published after FAA, other government, and industry representatives confirm their resource commitments for the implementation process. The FAA will fold the Board's safety recommendations to improve activity estimates for public use aircraft into the detailed implementation plans being developed for similar improvements suggested by the GADIT. The details of specific changes to the survey instrument and survey process may differ somewhat from the specifics contained in the Board's safety recommendations.

However, the FM believes improvements to the GAATAS will result in better activity estimates for all segments of the target population, including public use aircraft. The FAA also agrees that definitions of public use aircraft and public use flight operations should be harmonized with data collection activities conducted by the General Services Administration. To that end, the FM will meet with representatives from the General Services Administration in January to determine what changes would be appropriate for either agency to make. I will keep the Board informed of the FAA's progress on these safety recommendations.