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Speech – Helicopter Safety Time to Think Outside the Box

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Administrator Stephen Dickson
Anaheim, CA

Remarks As Delivered

Good morning, everyone.

By now, everyone is aware of the tragedy that happened Sunday morning, only 50 miles northwest of this convention center.

I speak for all of us at the FAA when I say that we are saddened by this accident and the loss of so many lives, and our hearts go out to the family and friends of those onboard.

It is much too early to speak intelligently about why this may have happened, but suffice it to say that the NTSB, FAA and others are already hard at work to discover the causes. Despite what the investigators ultimately determine, we in this room know that all too often, helicopter accidents and GA accidents, in general, turn out in hindsight to have been preventable.

I left Washington on Friday prepared to deliver a safety message here and to lead the charge for action on helicopter safety. The events of Sunday morning make that mission all the more urgent. If not now, then when. If not us, then who?

Though we meet here with heavy hearts, it is good to be among such an esteemed group of aviation professionals here today with a shared focus on aviation safety.

Of course, I recognize that the helicopter community deals with safety and operational threats that are much different from my experiences in all my years in fixed-wing fighter aircraft and commercial aviation. So I felt it was particularly important to come here in person today to see for myself the depth and breadth of your industry and to hear about your challenges and concerns.

Aside from a few pleasure rides in air tour helicopters, I do not have much personal experience in your operational world, but its clear to me from a professional perspective that rotary wing aviation is an essential element of our transportation system, particularly when it comes to helping people. How many of our citizens owe their lives to rescue helicopters, or the operators that spring into action on a moments notice to carry critically ill patients to the hospital?

These aircraft are extremely versatile with unique capabilities and handle a wide variety of operations 24/7/365.

We remember now that it is only a little more than 80 years since Igor Sikorsky hovered the worlds first practical helicopter in Stratford, Connecticut. Yet today vertical lift has become a mainstay in the American aviation landscape, and theres much more to come when you think about drones and urban air mobility.

While helicopters represent a relatively small portion of our general aviation fleetabout 6% their impact is significant and even disproportionate compared to other forms of aviationparticularly when you count the benefits to society from medivac, search and rescue, police, infrastructure inspection and air taxi operations, to name just a few.

Actually, one look in the exhibit hall or in the news, makes it clear that the notion of a rotorcraft as I just described earlierone rotor spinning above your headis sorely out of date. From relatively inexpensive quadcopters the size of a basketballto faster, quieter and more autonomous traditional helicopters and tiltrotors to automobile-sized electric flying taxis that are quickly jumping from the drawing boards to the test area, todays rotary wing aviation is quickly moving outside the box that Sikorsky first flew in.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems, known as UAS or drones, are now flying in the airspace that used to be largely the domain of helicopters. I dont have to tell you the growth has been exponential.

Weve been registering drones for a little more than four years, and weve already got more than 1.5 million on the books, with more than 400,000 listed for commercial use, and weve approved two Part 135 operators.

We have also approved 27 part 137 UAS operatorswhich you may know as crop dusters. Consider for reference, weve been registering aircraft for more than 90 years, and weve got just shy of 300,000 in the manned aircraft registry.

We are learning a great deal about the innovative ways that drones can help society and be operated in the NAS through our Integration Pilot Program. Our strategy of operations first, is allowing us to use the existing regulatory regime, which helps us ensure innovation can drive forward.

UPS and FedEx are actively participating in trials to speed up the delivery of small packages and working on type certificates for small autonomous drones. Innovators up in Alaska are looking to do the same with much larger vehicles.

Said another way, over the last 3 years, weve shifted our strategy from writing rules to getting machines in the air and flyingand taking lessons learned from the operations approval process to write better rules.

Our goal in the United States, in contrast to many areas of the world, is to integrate, rather than segregate, UAS operations into the NAS. At the moment I dont have to tell you that this strategy is nowhere more important than to the helicopter community, as in many respects the need for integration is felt more acutely in the airspace where you operate than it is in the airspace where we typically find fixed-wing operations.

Knowing the location of drones is a key requirement for accomplishing the vision. Thats why the FAA recently issued a long-awaited notice of proposed rulemaking to require drone operators to provide remote identification for their vehicles.

Weve received over 6000 comments so far and welcome the public input as it will help us craft a rule that meets the safety and security needs now and for the future.

Flying taxis are on the horizon and manufacturers are getting ready for testing. According to my UAS team, we are currently engaged with the builders of more than 15 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft projects. At CES in Las Vegas earlier this month, we saw Uber and the Hyundai Motor Company unveil a full-scale aircraft concept in their partnership to create Uber Air Taxis, and shortly after, Toyota announced a hefty investment in flying taxi developer Joby Aviation.

Also in January, we saw North Americas first public demonstration of an autonomous two-seat flying taxian eHang EH216 taking flight in Raleigh, albeit with no passengers.

Of course, the FAA has to ensure that these new entrants are safe before they can take part in regular National Airspace System operations. Were using a crawl, walk, run approach as we mature the vehicle technologies and air traffic management procedures to do this, and at this point, Ill note that were still in the crawling phase for both, but we are making rapid progress.

A key question we get from new entrants is how safe is safe? Will the fatal accident risk we accept for rotorcraft operations today be acceptable for Uber riders tomorrow? Probably not.

Wethe FAA and industryhave some important work to do in the name of rotary wing safety right now. Sundays crash comes one month to the day after the loss of seven people on a Safari Helicopters air tour on Kauai on December 26th.

These are tragic stories, particularly when families on an adventure or a quick ride to an event become the unwitting victims of accidents that, far too often, are preventable. In the aftermath of any crash, the reputation of the entire helicopter community is questioned, and the public may question whether the benefits are worth the risks.

We know from the U.S. Helicopter Safety Teams latest numbers that the helicopter sector has a fatal accident rate of approximately 0.63 per 100,000 hours, based on a five-year moving average. Thats well below the overall general aviation rate of approximately 0.94, but its not enough.

Just like the broader GA sector, pilot error is the predominant factor in fatal accidents. In fact, even when there is a mechanical component failure that leads to a crash, we often find that the component failed, because the helicopter was being operated outside its limits or the maintenance instructions were not being followed.

A key challenge we all face is that place where we have the largest number of paying passengers experiencing fatalities in our airspaceair tour operations. Im here to tell you this needs to change. We need to find ways to move that part of the industry toward the level of safety achieved by the commercial airline sector.

The good news is that with certain targeted interventions, the fatal accident rate has continued to declineand well discuss some of those initiatives later. The bad newsor it should be bad news to all of usis that the rate is still too high, and making interventions more difficult is that many of the pilots and operators in the personal/private helicopter sector are difficult to reach.

While an accident rate of zero is the ultimate goal, our Part 121 commercial airline industry today is the closest we have come to that. In the past 10 years, there have been more than 90 million commercial flights in our NAS, carrying more than 7 billion passengers, with two fatalities.

Thats a safety record thats hard to get your mind around in any human endeavor, much less one where youre carrying people in highly advanced aerospace vehicles at more than 500 mph and miles above the earth.

Granted, helicopters fly lower and slower, but theres no need for your safety goals to be lower, and frankly, for the flying taxi model to succeed, riders will likely expect an airline-like assurance of a safe flight. And why shouldnt they?

As I said earlier, the long-term GA fatal accident rate, including helicopters, is declining but we cant be satisfied. Its our responsibility to ask ourselves the hard questions and determine what more we can do to enhance Helicopter safety.

Consider that the helicopter offshore industry has a fatal accident rate that is a factor of two below the combined rate for the sector. How are they doing it and what are their lessons learned?

Thats one of the reasons why I came here to Heli-Expo, to take stock of your industry, hear your concerns, and to get up to speed on the unique aspects of helicopter operations.

When it comes to rotorcraft, Im a neophyte, and Im all ears.

I do have plenty of experience and perspective to offer from the world of fixed-wing commercial aviation safety, as you probably know: twenty-seven years at Delta, the last 12 of which I spent as Senior VP of flight operations. I was responsible for the safety and operational performance of the companys global flight operations of more than a million flights a year on six continents, as well as pilot training, crew resources, crew scheduling and regulatory compliance.

The commercial airline industrys stellar safety record in the NAS over the past decade is a testament to the evolution and adoption of risk-based decision-making processes by government and industry.

This is happening in part through initiatives like the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, or CAST, and effective tools like Safety Management Systems, voluntary safety reporting programs, flight data monitoring and sharing through data initiatives like ASIAS.

But we always, always, always need to stay humble and vigilant. We all know in our business youre only as good as your last takeoff and your last landing, and the number of takeoffs and landings need to equal each other.

Theres too much at stake to wait until the next accident occurs to figure out how to operate more safely. We have to identify accident and incident precursors so we can take actions to prevent themand shared data allows us to do that.

Some of these processes obviously are applicable to the GA and helicopter communities, and some may not be. As you probably know, weve migrated the data-driven analysis model over to GA through the GA Joint Steering Committee and through other government-industry initiatives like the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team.

Business aviation and portions of the flight training community are also well on their way to implementing data gathering, analyzing and sharing to help them and the broader industry figure out how it is performing.

In 2013, the FAA started with two members of the business aviation community participating in the ASIAS program. Seven years later, we have 100.

Thats impressive, and its a success story for our industry. But we dont rest on our laurels, because there are thousands of flight departments, single-pilot, and owner-flown operators, both fixed-wing and rotary-wing, out there who could, at minimum, find real value in Flight Data Monitoring and pilot reports, even if its just to monitor their own operations.

Using Flight Data Monitoring as feedback into your training program is a good example of a safety management system process. Safety management also relies on having a Just Culture in place so that pilots and aviation workers feel empowered to report honest mistakes and issues without fear of retribution. That atmosphere gives workers the freedom to report and provide their management with data they can use to get a heads-up on what might be an accident in the making.

Without that information, all bets are off. One year ago, tomorrow, a pilot and two air crewmembers were killed when their Bell 407, on a Part 135 flight, slammed into terrain near Zaleski, Ohio, while en route to a hospital for a patient pickup.

While the NTSB has not yet issued its conclusions, we know from the operational and human factors factual report, which was released in September, that there were issues with safety culture in that flight department.

A healthy safety culture requires some basic elements:

The organization must encourage employees to voluntarily report issues without the threat of retribution. It has to have data analysis capability to make sense of the flight data and safety reports. It needs a method of tracking and trending issues and the effects of corrective actions, and it must provide feedback to let employees know what became of their reports.

The factual material from this accident provides some good examples of what an unhealthy safety culture can look like. For example, numerous pilots and medical crew told investigators about incidents where they received, or they witnessed, pilots being reprimanded or challenged for declining flights. One pilot said he was not aware of a way to report safety concerns without getting himself in trouble.

The NTSB noted that while personnel were aware of the ways to report concerns, a number of them were uncomfortable voicing concerns due to fear of reprimand by management and the lack of previous management action on voiced safety concerns.

You can imagine how the inability to speak out might lead a pilot to take a mission when others would not. In fact, the accident flight had been rejected by two other providers. Making matters worse, the operator had stated in written materials to hospitals that they would take flights when other operators turned them down due to weather.

This accident is, unfortunately, not an isolated case of a safety culture vacuum when it comes to the helicopter and overall GA sector.

We, at the FAA, in concert with youindustryare working to improve helicopter safety on multiple frontsincluding information sharing, education about risk management and safety management systems, safety-boosting technology, and enhanced training, among othersand were always open to new ideas about how we can be more effective.

Adopting best practices is certainly a path to reducing risks. A great way to share your experiences and learn about the best practices of others is to participate in our new helicopter InfoShare program, which had its first meeting in October. Im told a key topic of discussion at the meeting was the importance of SMS, and how it can truly help helicopter operators reduce their risks. Another avenue for sharing best practices for oil and gas industry rotary-wing operators is through the Helicopter Safety Advisory Council, which has developed recommended practices that are easily adaptable to other helicopter sectors.

And have you heard of the USHSTs Safety Workshop in a Box? This is an education program where the FAAs Safety Team, or FAAST Team, along with industry safety experts, take their safety message directly to helicopter pilots.

Its a deep dive on one specific accident that educates pilots on decision-making. We tested the idea in Phoenix last year and, this year, will be taking it on the road to 10 cities and adding a second accident scenario.

The FAA is also working to bolster training related to loss-of-control awareness, pilot competency, and technical support.

In the technology area, were doing research with enhanced vision technologies to help pilots see in reduced visibilities and stability augmentation systems to make it easier to fly the machine when times are tough. Were also looking into algorithms that will make simulators accurate through a certain range outside the typical flight envelope, so that pilots can have more realistic training opportunities.

Were also working with industry to develop new helicopter Airman Certification Standards to replace the current practical test standards. The new standards will include risk management elements in all areas of operation and tasks to help develop better-prepared and safer helicopter pilots.

These efforts are a good start, but as I said earlier, were always in search of thinking that is outside the box on how we can address the accident rate.

We are serious about getting on top of the safety challenges we face in the helicopter air tour industry.

And frankly as many of you may know there is a lot of energy in Congress right now as it relates to both safety and noise concerns associated with helicopter air tours; if there isn’t meaningful action on both of these fronts very soon, I suspect the path forward will be dictated to this industry.

Our safety experts have begun developing an action plan to address the issues, and we look forward to sharing the details with our partners and stakeholders in the near future. Upon sharing this plan, we hope to receive your valuable input and support.

Before I close, I want to flag another issue we, and Im sure many of the operators in this room, are focused on helicopter noise. There is growing concern in many parts of this country about the impact of helicopter noise on communities.

This is part of a larger challenge that has been developing across the country with respect to aviation noise both around airports and often associated with air tours. And there are ongoing collaborative efforts to address noise. For example, FAA is engaged with HAIs Fly Neighborly Committee to promote community friendly flying and to educate operators on community engagement best practices.

However, without more engagement and action by the rotorwing sector, I suspect noise concerns will increasingly impact not just todays operations but our ability to integrate new users UAS and urban air mobility into the NAS.

I would urge operators to be much more proactive in their engagement with communities on noise issues and try to find constructive approaches to manage these challenges.

Thanks again for your attention. I look forward to learning more about this fascinating side of our industry and personally getting involved in making vertical flight as safe as possibleas safe as the public expects it to be. I hope to see many of you in the near future as we explore new ways to improve general aviation and helicopter safety. Together, we can do itwe must do it!

I do want to encourage you to attend the FAA: Meet the Regulators session taking place this Thursday at 8:3010:30 am, where you will get to meet several members of my senior leadership team. They plan to share information on rotorcraft safety initiatives and entertain your questions. Lets keep the dialog going.

Thanks for inviting me; I very much look forward to continuing this dialogue and our work together.

Speech – Statement of Stephen M. Dickson

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Administrator Stephen Dickson
Before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, United States House of Representatives

Remarks As Delivered

Chairman DeFazio, Ranking Member Graves, and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me here today to speak with you about the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) approach to safety oversight and to provide you with an update concerning the Boeing 737 MAX. On behalf of the United States Department of Transportation and everyone at the FAA, I would like to, once again, extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air accidents. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell and I have met with the family members and friends of those onboard. In these meetings, we have seen their pain, their loss, and it reaffirms the seriousness with which we must approach safety every single day. That is why we are working tirelessly to ensure that the lessons learned from these terrible losses will result in a higher margin of safety for the aviation industry globally.

Accompanying me here today is Earl Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence is the Executive Director of the FAAs Aircraft Certification Service, where he is responsible for type certification, production approval, airworthiness certification, and continued airworthiness of the U.S. civil aircraft fleet including commercial and general aviation activities.

Status of the 737 MAX Return-to-Service

Safety is the core of the FAAs mission and is our first priority. We are working diligently to ensure that the type of accidents that occurred in Indonesia and Ethiopiaresulting in the tragic loss of 346 livesdo not occur again. The FAA is following a thorough process for returning the 737MAX to service. This process is not guided by a calendar or schedule. Safety is the driving consideration. I unequivocally support the dedicated professionals of the FAA in continuing to adhere to a data-driven, methodical analysis, review, and validation of the modified flight control systems and pilot training required to safely return the 737 MAX to commercial service. I have directed FAA employees to take whatever time is needed to do that work.

With respect to our international partners, the FAA clearly understands its responsibilities as the State of Design for the 737 MAX. In September, we met with more than 50 invited foreign civil aviation officials, all of whom have provided input to the FAA and will play a role in clearing the 737 MAX for flight in their respective nations. We are also conducting and planning a number of outreach activities, including providing assistance to support foreign authorities on return-to-service issues; maintaining transparency through communication and information sharing; and scheduling meetings for technical discussions.

As I have stated before, the FAAs return-to-service decision on the 737 MAX will rest solely on the FAAs analysis of the data to determine whether Boeings proposed software updates and pilot training address the known issues for grounding the aircraft. The FAA fully controls the approvals process for the flight control systems and is not delegating anything to Boeing. The FAA will retain authority to issue airworthiness certificates and export certificates of airworthiness for all new 737 MAX airplanes manufactured since the grounding. When the 737 MAX is returned to service, it will be because the safety issues have been addressed and pilots have received all of the training they need to safely operate the aircraft.

Actions that must still take place before the aircraft will return to service include a certification flight test and completion of work by the Joint Operations Evaluation Board (JOEB), which is comprised of the FAA Flight Standardization Board (FSB) and our international partners from Canada, Europe, and Brazil. The JOEB will evaluate pilot training needs. The FSB will issue a report addressing the findings of the JOEB and the report will be made available for public review and comment. Additionally, the FAA will review all final design documentation, which also will be reviewed by the multi-agency Technical Advisory Board (TAB). The FAA will issue a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community providing notice of pending significant safety actions and will publish an Airworthiness Directive advising operators of required corrective actions. Finally, I am not going to sign off on this aircraft until all FAA technical reviews are complete, I fly it myself using my experience as an Air Force and commercial pilot, and I am satisfied that I would put my own family on it without a second thought.

Oversight of Aircraft Certification

Safety is a journey, not a destinationa journey we undertake each and every day with humility. Todays unprecedented U.S. safety record was built on the willingness of aviation professionals to embrace hard lessons and to proactively seek continuous improvement. The FAA both welcomes and invites scrutiny of our processes and procedures. In addition to this Committees investigation, several independent reviews have been initiated to look at different aspects of the 737 MAX certification and the FAAs certification and delegation processes generally.

The first review to be completed was one that the FAA commissionedasking nine other civil aviation authorities to join the FAA in a Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the certification of the automated flight control system on the 737 MAX. The JATR was chaired by former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Christopher Hart and was comprised of a team of experts from the FAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the aviation authorities of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Never before have 10 authorities come together to conduct this type of review. I thank the JATR members for their unvarnished and independent review and we welcome their recommendations.

The FAA also initiated a TAB made up of FAA Chief Scientists and experts from the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. The TABs task is to conduct an independent review of the proposed integrated system, training, and continued operational safety determination for the 737MAX. The TAB recently briefed me, and previously briefed this Committee, on their progress and the status of Boeings and the FAAs responses to the return-to-service action items.

Last month, the FAA received recommendations from the NTSB and the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committees accident report on Lion Air Flight 610. We are carefully evaluating the recommendations in both of these reports as we continue our review of the proposed changes to the 737 MAX. Work also continues on the Department of Transportations Inspector General audit of the 737 MAX certification, as well as this Committees investigation and other congressional reviews. Finally, we are also awaiting a report from the Secretary of Transportations Special Committee on aircraft certification. This blue-ribbon panel was established earlier this year to advise and provide recommendations to the Department on policy-level topics related to certification across the manufacturer spectrum.

We believe that transparency, open and honest communication, and our willingness to improve our systems and processes are the keys to restoring public trust in the FAA and in the safety of the 737 MAX when it is returned to service. The FAA is fully committed to addressing the recommendations from all of the various groups reviewing our certification processes. We will implement any changes that would improve our certification activities and increase safety. It would be premature, however, to discuss any changes concerning the FAAs certification processes or FAAs personnel at any level before this Committees investigation and other ongoing reviews have concluded, and we have a chance to carefully analyze their results and recommendations.

Moving Forward

Beyond the 737 MAX, the FAA is committed to addressing issues regarding aircraft certification processes not only in the United States, but around the world. These issues include:

  • moving toward a more holistic versus transactional, item-by-item approach to aircraft certification taking into account the interactions between all aircraft systems and the crew;
  • integrating human factors considerations more effectively throughout the design process, as aircraft become more automated and systems more complex; and
  • ensuring coordinated and flexible information flow during the oversight process.

Yet, if we are to continue to raise the bar for safety across the globe, it will be important for the FAA and our international partners to foster improvements in standards and approaches not just for how aircraft are designed and produced, but also how they are maintained and operated. We at the FAA are prepared to take the lead in this new phase of system safety. I see our strategy coalescing around four themes: Big Data; Just Culture; Global Leadership; and People.

Big Data

The FAA must continue leaning into our role as a data-driven, risk-based decision-making oversight organization that prioritizes safety above all else. We do that by breaking down silos between organizations and implementing Safety Management Systems supported by compliance programs and informed by data. We look at the aviation ecosystem as a whole, including how all the parts interact: aircraft, pilots, engineers, flight attendants, technicians, mechanics, dispatchers, air traffic controllerseveryone and everything in the operating environment. The FAA is examining the data we have, identifying data we may need, and looking for new methods for analyzing and integrating data to increase safety.

Just Culture

In addition to the technical work required for truly integrated data, a key enabler of a data-driven safety organization is a healthy and robust reporting culture. A good safety culture produces the data you need to figure out whats really happening. If we know about safety concerns and we know where threats are coming from and how errors are occurring, we can mitigate the risks and fix the processes that led to those errors. A good safety culture demands that we infuse that safety data into all of our processes from top to bottomin a continuous loop.

To be successful, a safety organization relies on a Just Culture that places great value on front-line employees and those involved in the operation raising and reporting safety concerns in a timely, systematic way, without fearing retaliation. A Just Culture starts at the top. Its something leadership has to nurture and support everywhere in the organization. Employees have to see the results, see what the data is showing, and see how the organization is using analysis tools to identify concerns and errors and put actions in place to mitigate them.

Global Leadership

Today, the U.S. aviation system is the safest, most dynamic and innovative in the world, and we have the numbers to prove it. This is largely due to these collaborative approaches to safety. An example of the kind of collaboration and safety innovation we can use to lead the global aviation safety system to even higher levels of performance is Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS). ASIAS is one of the crown jewels of the aviation safety system in the United States. It is unique in the world. Its purpose is to proactively discover and mitigate emerging safety issues before they result in an incident or accident.

ASIAS de-identifies airline and company proprietary data submitted by a growing number of stakeholders in accordance with information sharing agreements and governance protocols. This ensures a level of protection for participants and protects against disclosure of a specific flight crew or entity, which has helped to foster a culture of trust within the ASIAS program and across stakeholder organizations. As trust has developed, data access has increased and enabled advancements in data analysis methodologies through more automated capabilities and the fusing together of data streams that provide a 360-degree perspective on safety issues. This fusion bypasses the limits associated with analyzing data in separate silos of information, provides insight from multiple integrated data sources, and enables analysts to better understand the full context of safety events. ASIAS works in partnership with the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) that proactively mitigates risks thorough the voluntary adoption of Safety Enhancements.

Over the years, the FAA has exercised a leadership role in the promotion and development of global aviation safety. We have helped raise the bar on safety standards and practices around the world working with ICAO and other civil aviation authorities. We have an opportunity to do even more. We are committed to expanding our efforts with other authorities around the world and to fostering safety standards and policies at ICAO to help meet the publics expectations of the highest possible levels of safety globally, even in areas the FAA does not regulate directly. Without safety as a foundation, we cannot have a vibrant aviation industry in any country, much less between countries. Our international air transportation network is a tightly woven fabric that is dependent on all of us making safety our core value.

People

We live in an incredibly dynamic time in aviation, with new emerging technologies and capabilities transforming the NAS. But at its core, a huge technical, operational, and regulatory agency like the FAA is made of peoplepeople who are driven to serve, people with families, hopes and dreams, and most importantly, people who are dedicated safety professionals. I have the utmost respect for the jobs that they do every day, making sure our skies are safe and that the operation of the system is efficientand serves the publicas well as it possibly can. Its now time to show the next generation of aviation leaders what incredible opportunities lie ahead for them in our field, both personally and professionally. It is the people who will innovate and collaborate to take us to the next level of safety, operational excellence, and opportunity.

Conclusion

Aviations hard lessons and the hard work in response to those lessonsfrom both government and industryhave paved the way to creating a global aviation system with an enviable safety record. But as I mentioned earlier, safety is a journey, not a destination. We have achieved unprecedented levels of safety in the United States. Yet what we have done in the past and what we are doing now will not be good enough in the future in an increasingly interconnected world. We must build on the lessons learned, and we must never allow ourselves to become complacent.

Those lessons teach us that in order to prevent the next accident from happening, we have to look at the overall aviation system and how all the pieces interact. Time and again, it has been shown that accidents happened due to a complex interaction of multiple issues. Focus on a single factor will lead us to miss opportunities to improve safety that come from regulators and industry raising the bar not just in certification, but in maintenance and training procedures.

That will require truly integrated data and collaboration, enterprise-wide. When our dataand our organizationsare kept in silos, we may miss information that could provide an opportunity to make important safety decisions that will improve processes or even prevent accidents entirely. We have to be constantly learning from each otherregulator and those we regulateto help each other improve.

The United States has been, and will continue to be, the global leader in aviation safety. We are confident that continuing to approach this task with a spirit of humility, openness, and transparency will bolster aviation safety worldwide.

This concludes my statement. I will be glad to answer your questions.

Speech – A Conversation with FAA Administrator Steve Dickson on Global Aviation Safety and Innovation

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Administrator Stephen Dickson
Dubai, UAE

Remarks As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you for that introduction, Bailey (Edwards). Its good to be here in Dubai at the premier aviation and air industry event in the Middle East. Like the U.S., the UAE has a safety-focused, vibrant and competitive aviation industry, with innovative new entrants like commercial space, unmanned aircraft and flying taxis.

The aviation industry is an economic driver here, accounting for 1.4 million jobs and U.S. $130 billion to the regional Gross Domestic Product of the Middle East. At lot of that activity flows through Dubai International airportthe largest international airport in the worldwith 90 million passengers annually.

Bailey mentioned my position as Senior VP for Flight Ops at Delta. I learned many things during 12 years in that position, but the main thing the job made me understand was that regardless of change, new entrants, increasing complexity or competitionsafety always has to remain the focus and bedrock of our industry.

Im sure we agree that safety is a journey, not a destination. We know that we must build on what weve learned from the hard lessons along the way, and we must never allow ourselves to become complacent.

The 737 MAX remains a key focus for the FAA and our partners throughout the world, including here in the UAE where FlyDubai has 14 aircraft in its fleet, and firm orders for 225 more.

On behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration, I would like to, once again, extend our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air accidents. Many nations, including the United States, had citizens on those flights. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell and I have been meeting with family members and friends of those onboard. Each time we meet, we see their pain, their loss, and it reaffirms the seriousness with which we must approach safety every single day. We want our citizens and our own families to have confidence in the aviation system when they travel. That is why we, as regulators and operators, work so hard in our jobs every day.

I am absolutely committed to honoring the memory of those who lost their lives, by working tirelesslyeach and every day of my tenureto ensure the highest possible margin of safety in the global aviation system. Safety is a journey we undertake each and every day with humility and a focus on continuous improvement.

The FAA welcomes scrutiny and feedback on how we can improve our processes. Several independent reviews have been undertaken of the 737 MAX and the FAAs certification and delegation processes. The first to be completed was one we commissioned-asking nine other authoritiesincluding the UAEto join us in the Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) to assess the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system certification. Never before have 10 authorities come together to conduct a review of this sort. And I want to emphasize that we invited this probing review by our peer regulators. That is the FAA at its best. We welcome the input and critique from the various other reviews and audits as well.

Willingness to accept input and critique is a sign of humility and transparency. It is also a strength. I have seen this firsthand as Ive met our regulatory counterparts around the world. They appreciate and value US leadership. They understand that by working together, we will all be better and raise the bar on global aviation safety.

Going forward beyond the MAX, some key themes are emerging regarding aircraft certification processes not only in the US, but around the world. I am committed to addressing each of these issues. They include:

  • Moving toward a more holistic versus transactional, item-by-item approach to aircraft certification;
  • Integrating human factors considerations more effectively throughout the design process, as aircraft become more automated and systems more complex; and
  • Ensuring coordinated and flexible information flow during the oversight process.

These are among the many issues that we must address to prevent the next accident from happening. We must look at the overall aviation system and how all the pieces interact.

Its much more than aircraft and pilots when we talk about the overall aviation system. For one, the airspace through which we fly must be clear of conflicts and there is the ever present threat of cyberattacks to infrastructure and the aircraft itself.

The most tragic and vivid demonstration of an airspace threat was the horrific shoot down of Malaysia Air Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. It was a watershed moment for aviation safety and security, underscoring the necessity of assessing the risk that conflict zones pose to civil aviation.

Since that time, FAA has redoubled its efforts to work with partners inside and outside the U.S. Government to identify and analyze emergent threats. We issue, when necessary flight advisories or prohibitions for airspace affected by specific aviation threats.

The FAA currently has a prohibition preventing U.S. carriers from operating in the Damascus Flight Information Region due to the conflict in Syria.

While there considerations internationally for resuming services in the Damascus FIR and to the Damascus International Airport, the FAA considers this airspace unsafe for civil aviation due to ongoing military operations, threats from extremists, heavy jamming of Global Positioning System navigation signals, and uncoordinated surface-to-air missile launches.

I said earlier, safety is a journey, not a destination, and we must be constantly vigilant of the entire system.

By the same token, if and when incidents and accidents do happenhowever infrequentlywe cant prematurely point the finger of blame against the pilots, the airplane, the operator, or any other single factor. Too ofteneven in the recent pastrushing to judgment has resulted in some segments of the industry missing out on opportunities to improve our margin of safety.

We have to look at the whole system and how all the parts interact. That will require truly integrated data, enterprise-wide, and constant learning from each other regulator and those we regulate. Thats the only way the system is going to get better.

Ill end by saying that its a pleasure to be here and I look forward to learning a great deal about Dubai and the UAE here at the show. Thank you everyone for coming and I hope you have a great show. Now Bailey will begin the question and answer portion of the forum.

Speech – Unleashing the Power of Commercial Space Transportation

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Administrator Stephen Dickson
Washington, DC

Remarks As Delivered

Hello everyone.. Its great to be here representing the FAA at the second annual U.S. Chamber of Commerce Space Summit. The title of your eventLaunch: The Space Economy, is very appropriate for me considering my short time in this job. Ive been learning so much, so fast, and in so many locations around the world for the past three months that sometimes it feels like Ive been launched on a rocket.

Its been an exhilarating and fascinating ride though. I just came back from the Dubai Air Show, where I met officials with the Dubai-based Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, which builds and operates Earth observation satellites. The Center is part of the broader UAE Space Agency. The UAE is an energetic new participant in human space flight, having sent their first astronaut to the International Space Station in late September for an 8-day mission. Next year, they plan to launch a probe to Mars. Their long-range goal? To eventually colonize the red planet. Talk about a stretch goal!

If thats not proof of a vibrant and expanding aerospace industry, Im not sure what is.

Developments like that strengthen my resolve to unleash the power of commercial space transportation by paving the way for easier access to low Earth orbit through the National Airspace System, and doing so safely and efficiently.

The FAA has maximum support for doing this workits a mission that is front and center for the Trump Administration and the Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao. Last year, as you know, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive-2, which calls on the FAA to streamline the rules for commercial launch and re-entry while at the same time protecting national security and public safety. The idea in part is to boost the confidence of private industry to invest in commercial space.

Those investments are substantialand already growing at a fast pace. According to the National Space Council, in the first half of 2019, we saw almost as much investment in space companies as we did in all of 2018. Over the past decade, weve seen a total of nearly $25 billion invested in about 500 space companies, most of which are American. What those dollars are fueling are commercial ventures that could be right out of a science fiction book: space travel and tourism, satellite servicing, orbital debris removal, in-space manufacturing and huge constellations of miniature satellites for global Internet connectivity and other services. Im sure there are many more brilliant ideas in the minds of bright entrepreneurs.

And lets face it this is not just about commerce. All of this innovation is exciting for Americas youth in a way that the Apollo program was for me and many others when I was a kid a few years ago….Ok, quite a few years ago.

At the Dubai Air Show two weeks ago, I met Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot Al Worden, who was one of my Dads West Point classmatesClass of 55. I was reminded of how that program was the driving force behind a generation of engineers, scientists and pilots, myself among them. Three of our biggest commercial space innovatorsJeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Bransonsay the Apollo missions lit the fuse that led to them becoming space entrepreneurs.

Our visions of launching beyond the wild blue yonder into space were based on a black-and-white RCA TV and baritone-voiced anchormen. Todayright from their high def smart phoneskids see the dashboard camera from a Tesla Roadster that Elon Musk launched atop his Falcon Heavy test rocket and put into orbit around the sun. On social media, they see two 160-foot-tall SpaceX rocket boosters sticking a landing after delivering upper stages to orbit; they see Beth Moses floating free in SpaceShipTwo as the first woman to make a commercial space flight; they see the massive Stratolauncherthe worlds largest aircrafttaking to the skies on its first flight in preparation for dropping boosters at altitude for what they call airline-style access to space.

And while us Apollo kids could only imagine what it would be like to go into space one day, todays youth can actually save their money to buy a ride on a suborbital excursion which may one day, in the not too distant future, zoom them to anywhere in the world in about 30 minutes.

Or better yetfrom my perspective as a potential employerthey can take part in creating and launching an on-orbit experiment on as early as fifth grade. I think such real-time exposure and engagement will pay off some day with a whole new generation of scientists and aerospace engineers.

Modernizing the way we regulate and license commercial space operations will allow all of this to be done more affordably and efficiently, while keeping the focus on our North Starsafety. Its a tall order, but we have to succeed or well be left behind.

The FAA learned the hard way with the Unmanned Aircraft revolution that innovation and technology wait for no one. In that case, an entirely new industry sprung up practically overnight, and we werent ready for it. Im happy to say the agency has come a long way toward getting caught up on UAS, but we are determined not to let it happen again for other new entrants, commercial space chief among them.

So what do we do? To start with, we do the crucial work the Administration and the DOT have asked us to do: We rework our launch and reentry licensing regime to streamline regulations for licensing commercial space transportation activities, and we work to more efficiently integrate real-time launch operations with ongoing aviation operations in the National Airspace System.

Eventually, we envision that commercial space will have a modern set of flexible, performance-based regulations that parallel commercial aviation, with vehicle and crew certifications as well as operational approvals, installation of safety management systems, and the associated Just Culture methodologies. But as you know, given the fragile nature of such a nascent industry, the U.S. Congress in 2004 imposed a regulations moratorium on commercial human spaceflight that has been extended several times, and now continues through 2023.

As it is, the FAA has a mandate to protect the public on the ground and aircraft from the surface to 60,000 feet. For the public on the ground, we do this through launch, reentry and spaceport regulations; for aircraft deconfliction, we do it through some less than efficient means. More on that later.

Our regulations require us to license each commercial launch in the U.S. or launches conducted by a U.S. company anywhere in the world. Each license requires the applicant to submit a system safety analysis and a ground safety analysis, detailed documents that prove to the FAA that the intended launch or reentry will not pose an undue threat to the public.

While this way of doing business worked well for a few commercial launches a yearthe way it used to bethe pace has picked up to the point where it is quickly becoming impractical. In 2018, the FAA issued a record 35 launch and reentry licenses. The total this year is expected to be similar, but for 2020, were on tap for 52 licensed activities, and theres ample reason to believe the numbers will climb. There are currently 11 licensed spaceports in 8 states around the U.S., many in non-traditional locations, like New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado, and a handful more in the pipeline.

Our Streamlined Launch and Reentry Licensing Requirements Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, or NPRM, is the first step in modernizing access to space. The goal is to simplify the licensing process, enable novel operations and reduce costs. One example: the rules would allow companies to use a single FAA license for multiple launches from multiple launch sites.

We closed the public comment period on the NPRM in August, receiving 154 submissions, many of which included very detailed and well thought out comments from industry. Our commercial space team is carefully reviewing all the input, and we are working toward publishing a final rule in the fall of 2020.

One area where the FAA can make significant progress in making launches more efficient from an overall commerce standpointwithout new regulationis moving to dynamic deconfliction of space vehicles and commercial airliners, using shared data. Today, the FAA uses a manual process to close off relatively large swaths of airspace around launch and reentry corridors for relatively long periods as there is no operational real-time surveillance and communication between the launch providers and FAA air traffic control. Considering the growing number of launches, these impacts will only increase.

The FAA recognizes the issue, and we are working on solutions. Our Space Data Integrator, or SDI, concept is key to providing relief. We currently have a prototypewhich we developed in part with data that SpaceX and Blue Origin provided from their launchesthat automates the current manual process of transmitting real-time launch and reentry data from the commercial launch provider to the FAAs Joint Space Operations Group and Air Traffic managers.

At the Command Center, analysts review the information and determine how to modify aircraft hazard areas to reduce the impact to flights in the area. This is the first step in a phased approach to get to the end goal real-time launch and reentry information that will allow for dynamic rerouting information automatically sent to air traffic controllers and directly to the cockpit an important capability, especially in launch contingency situations. With dynamic rerouting, we can close and open airspace faster and more efficiently, while keeping safety as our top priority.

The FAAs Program Management Organization is currently working to operationalize the first stage of SDIthe piece that takes in real time surveillance quality data from the launch providersby 2022. The next step will be getting the information to controllers, and finally, to pilots.

You can see from the tempo and diversity in launch operations that its critical that we get all of this righttheres too much important and innovative work to be done in space. Consider the payloads on the Electron rocket built by new entrant, Rocket Lab, with its Running out of Fingers mission set for launch as soon as Friday out of the Mahia (Muh-hee-ah) Peninsula in New Zealand. The FAA licenses Rocket Lab launches because its a U.S. company. Why Running out of Fingers? Its their tenth mission….and as an FYI, theyve only been launching for two years.

Payloads on the Electron include a thermal isolation material experiment from Hungarian company, ATL; a telecommunications picosatellite that can fit in the palm of your hand, developed by a Spanish company Fossa Systems; and a small satellite built by Tokyo-based ALE Company that aims to create man-made shooting stars by simulating re-entering meteor showers. ALEs tag line probably wont surprise you: Shooting stars, on demand.

As they say, you couldnt make this stuff up if you tried!

But that one mission highlights just a small dose of the massive amount of energy, creativity, and multi-national industry collaboration that commercial space is bringing to the table.

We at the FAA are doing our part to make sure these companies and payloads get the most efficient and safest access to space, while at the same time making sure those on the ground will be able to enjoy their shooting stars, on demand.

Thank you for your time.

Speech – Safety Through Integrity, Innovation and People

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Administrator Stephen Dickson
Washington, DC

Remarks As Delivered

Introduction

Thank you for that kind introduction, Paul. Its good to be here at the Washington Aero Club among so many friends and colleagues. You know, Im a bit embarrassed to say this, but this is the first time Ive been to a Washington Aero Club luncheon, despite being in the aviation business for 40 years. It wasnt anything deliberate on my part, even though there are many familiar faces hereits just that our paths never crossed at this venue. Actually, truth be told, somebody told me you have to give up your outside the Beltway membership card if you come to one of these, so thats why I stayed away.

Im also thrilled to be here today to see Carl receive the Engen Trophy. As you all know, Carl is the epitome of a public servant, and hes passionate about aviation. We at the FAA are better because of him, and the American public has benefited greatly from Carls leadership and dedication. It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to work with him, and call him colleague and friend. Congratulations, Carl.

Its hard not to be passionate about an industry that makes our world smaller. Aviation fundamentally redefines geographic boundaries, provides tremendous economic opportunities, and connecting people and cultures in ways that were unimaginable not too long ago. And I know the people in this room- regardless of differences in perspectives and experiences–share a common bond–a love for aviation. We also share a commitment to enhancing the benefits aviation offers our citizens today, as well as the promise it holds to connect the world in the decades ahead.

Thats why Im herebecause I love aviation, and I love people. Its a privilege to lead. Ive discovered great people at the FAA, and as you might imagine Im getting a lot of advice about how to run the place. Now, some of that advice has been more helpful than other advice has. But seriously, its already been a rewarding adventure.

Background

Now I know youre probably asking yourself, Why did you do it, Steve? Why become FAA Administrator? Several people asked me the same question when I was going through the confirmation process. One of those people was my wife, who also questioned my sanity at several points along the way. The FAA was actually an unplanned diversion from our original flight plan. I was looking for what the next thing would be after my military and airline career. My wife thought it would be retirement.

But when Secretary Chao called me and asked if Id consider leading the FAA, I said Id be interested in talking about it. FAA Administrator is not something you aspire to or even contemplate, but if I could help make a difference, I could think of no better way to serve my country in a way that allows me to use my passion for flying and my four decades of experience in the aviation industry. I am both humbled and grateful that I have the chance to lead the FAA at this historic–and challenging–time. But challenges create opportunities, dont they?

My experience includes flying F-15 fighters in our Air Force and 27 years at Delta Air Lines. At Delta, I flew as a line pilot for the first nine years of my career, eventually qualifying on the B727, B737, B757, B767 and A320 series aircraft. The last 12 years I served as the Senior Vice President of Flight Operations.

During a visit to an aviation high school last month, one of the students asked me my favorite plane to fly during my airline career. I said I liked them all, but my favorite big jet is the 757. But Im also fond of the 727, where I started out as a flight engineer. Even though I was qualified as a fighter pilot, the most difficult training program I ever completed was as a flight engineer trainee in the 727 at Delta. On that airplane the flight engineer was the system integrator, and you had to really have a detailed understanding of every system on the aircraft. Sitting down in front of the engineer panel was something very foreign for a single-seat fighter pilot. Early in training, staring at the banks of amber indicator lights on the panel while figuring out what to doif a student hesitated the instructors would joke that you were sitting there getting a suntan.

But it was a great way to learn about airline operations. The way the cockpit was laid out, the flight engineer was always working with the flight attendants, working customer service issues, working with the captain on checklists, all the time gaining valuable insight into how the captain was managing the flight deck and making decisions.

As SVP of flight ops, I was responsible for the safety and operational performance of the companys global flight operations of more than a million flights a year on six continents, as well as pilot training, crew resources, crew scheduling and regulatory compliance. That job made me understand this simple fact: regardless of change, increasing complexity or competition– safety always has to remain the focus and bedrock of our industry.

So now three months into my job here at the FAA, let me share a few observations. Ill start out by saying I feel a little like that new-hire flight engineera lot experience, but a completely new environment and a lot to learn!

The MAX

Not surprisingly, Ive been in a lot of conversations about the Boeing 737 MAX.

On behalf of everyone at the FAA, I would like to, once again, extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air accidents. Many nations, including the United States, had citizens on those flights. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell and I have met with the family members and friends of those onboard. Each time we meet, we see their pain, their loss, and it reaffirms the seriousness with which we must approach safety every single day. We want our citizens and our own families to have confidence in the aviation system when they travel. These accidents should not have happened. That is why we, as regulators and operators, work so hard in our jobs every day.

I will tell you this, and if you dont remember anything else I say today, please remember this: I am absolutely committed to honoring the memory of those who lost their lives, by working tirelesslyeach and every day of my tenureto ensure the highest possible margin of safety in the global aviation system. We will never rest. We can always find ways to improve. We can always do better. Safety is a journey, not a destinationa journey we undertake each and every day with humility and a focus on continuous improvement.

Ive said this before but will continue to repeat it: the FAAs return-to-service decision for the MAX will be based solely on our assessment of the sufficiency of Boeings proposed software updates and pilot training that addresses the known issues for grounding the aircraft. We are not delegating anything. When we finally take the decision to return this aircraft to service, it will be the most scrutinized aircraft in history. It will also be one of the safest machines to ever take to the sky. I am not going to sign off on this aircraft until I fly it myself and am satisfied that I would put my own family on it without a second thought.

As both Dan and I have said, we welcome scrutiny and feedback on how we can improve our processes. Several independent reviews have been undertaken of the 737 MAX and the FAAs certification and delegation processes. The first to be completed was one we commissionedasking 9 other authorities to join us in the Joint Authorities Technical Review (JATR) to assess the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system certification. Never before have 10 authorities come together to conduct a review of this sort. And I want to emphasize that we invited this probing review by our peer regulators. That is the FAA at its best. We welcome the JATRs recommendations, and I appreciate their thorough review and hard work.

We also created a Technical Advisory Board, or TAB, made up of FAA Chief Scientists and experts from the U.S. Air Force, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, and NASA. The TABs job is to conduct an independent review of the proposed integrated system, training, and continued operational safety determination for the 737 MAX. The TAB recently briefed members of Congress and myself on their progress and status of Boeings and the FAAs response to the Return to Service action items.

Work also continues on the Department of Transportations IG audit of the 737 MAX certification, as well as congressional investigations. And we welcome the recent recommendations issued by the NTSB. Finally, we are also awaiting a report from the Secretarys Special Committee on aircraft certification. This blue-ribbon panel was established earlier this year to advise and provide recommendations to the Department on policy-level topics related to certification across the manufacturer spectrum.

Willingness to accept critique is a sign of humility and transparency. It is also a strength. I have seen this firsthand as Ive met our regulatory counterparts around the world. They appreciate and value US leadership. They understand that by working together, we will all be better and raise the bar on global aviation safety.

Going forward beyond the MAX, some key themes are emerging regarding aircraft certification processes not only in the US, but around the world. I am committed to addressing each of these issues. They include:

  • moving toward a more holistic versus transactional, item-by-item approach to aircraft certification;
  • integrating human factors considerations more effectively throughout the design process, as aircraft become more automated and systems more complex;
  • ensuring coordinated and flexible information flow during the oversight process.

An Exciting Time

While attention has been rightfully focused on the 737MAX, we are also focused on integrating innovative new entrants into the NAS. If youve been watching your FAA Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds, youve certainly seen the boom in the unmanned aircraft and commercial space sectors.

Weve already registered about 1.5 million small drones, about 400,000 of which are for commercial purposes, and weve approved two Part 135 drone operators. As a point of reference for how fast this industry is moving, the FAA and its predecessors have been registering manned aircraft for 92 years, and after only four years of registering drones, weve got four times as many on the books.

UPS and FedEx are actively participating in trials to speed up the delivery of small packages and working on type certificates for small autonomous drones. Innovators up in Alaska are looking to do the same with much larger vehicles. We are learning a great deal about the innovative ways that drones can help society through our Integration Pilot Program, which Secretary Chao launched two years ago. Our strategy of operations first, is allowing us to use the existing regulatory regime, which helps us ensure innovation can drive forward. Said another way, over the last 3 years, weve shifted from writing rules to getting machines in the air and flyingand taking lessons learned from the operations approval process to write better rules. The vision is to integrate, rather than segregate, UAS into the NAS.

Through the Integration Pilot Program, we are partnering with 9 state, local and tribal governments and industry to inform UAS regulations, policy and guidance by learning from practical applications. Perhaps more importantly, these efforts have become the match that is lighting a creative fire in the industry and for what this novel new form of transportation might achieve.

Flying taxisaka urban air mobilityare on the horizon and chomping at the bit to begin airspace testing. According to the FAA UAS team, we are currently engaged with the builders of more than 15 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft projects.

Airframers are eyeing a potential renaissance in supersonic civil aircraft and startup civil space companies are looking to connect New York and Shanghai in less than 40 minutes. Commercial space launch activity has ramped up tenfold in just a few years. Just yesterday we saw a successful FAA-licensed and certified commercial space launch, which deployed 60 communications satellites to low Earth orbit.

Life-saving automation technologies are coming to smaller and smaller aircraft. Late last month, a prominent avionics maker unveiled a new product development that highlights the promise. In a nutshell, if the pilot of a small plane equipped with this technology becomes incapacitated, the passengers now have a chance. They push a button on the panel, and the automation takes over and lands the plane at the nearest suitable airport. Imagine that!

All of this is exciting. As the regulator, we must find ways to operate ahead of the rate of change of the industry. This will require us to improve continuously and avoid bureaucratic inertia. We have to leverage our collective experience without allowing the attitude of weve always done it that way to be an obstacle.

Safety First

So how do we reconcile incredibly bright and innovative minds and fast-moving technologies with a reinvigorated regulatory agency that wants and needs innovation, but at the same time maintains safety as its North Star?

We do it by sticking to our core values of safety, through integrity, innovation and people. And I see our strategy coalescing around four themes:

  • Big data;
  • Just culture;
  • Global leadership; and
  • People.

Big Data: We must continue leaning into our role as a data-driven, risk-based decision-making oversight organization that prioritizes safety above all else.We do that by breaking down silos between organizations and implementing Safety Management Systems supported by compliance programs. We look at the aviation ecosystem as a whole, including how all the parts interact: aircraft, pilots, engineers, flight attendants, technicians, mechanics, dispatchers, air traffic controllerseveryone and everything in the operating environment.

Just Culture: In addition to the technical work required for truly integrated data, a key enabler of a data-driven safety organization is a healthy reporting culture. A good safety culture produces the data you need to figure out whats really happening. If we know about safety risks and we know where threats are coming from and how errors are occurring, we can mitigate the risks and fix the processes that led to those errors. A good safety culture demands that we infuse that safety data into all of our processes from top to bottomin a continuous loop.

To be successful, a safety organization relies on a Just Culture that places great value on front-line employees and those involved in the operation raising and reporting safety concerns in a timely, systematic way, without fearing retaliation. That requires that a Just Culture starts at the top. Its something leadership has to nurture and support. Employees have to see the results, see what the data is showing, how the agency or company is using analysis tools to identify risks and errors and put actions in place to mitigate them.

From the perspective of an operations leader at an airline, Safety Management Systems allowed us to find out about issues and put preventative measures in place before an accident or incident occurs. Of course, there were certain actions that were out of bounds for example, if someone intentionally violated a rule. But if someone made an honest mistake, we would put corrective actions in place to make sure we addressed the issues systemically. Sometimes, it might involve retraining a crew, but in those cases where the data indicated a trend, the corrective actions often involved modifications to processes, procedures, policies or training.

Global Leadership: When you think about how far aviation has come in a little more than a centuryfrom the barnstorming days to a safety record that is the envy of all modes of transportationits hard to argue the value of these safety tools and the importance of the FAAs leadership. Today, the U.S. aviation system is the safest, most dynamic and innovative in the world, and we have the numbers to prove it. This is largely due to these collaborative approaches to safety championed by the FAA and by many of the people in this room. Last Friday I spent some time out at MITRE with the ASIAS (Aviation Safety Information And Sharing) team. ASIAS is one of the crown jewels of the aviation safety system in the United States. It is unique in the world. This is an example of the kind of collaboration and safety innovation we can use to lead the global aviation safety system to even higher levels of performance. By working with and mentoring other authorities around the world, we will work to ensure we meet the publics expectations of the highest possible levels of safety globally, even in areas we dont regulate directly. Over the years the FAA has done more than any other organization around the world to promote and develop global aviation safety. We have an opportunity to do even more. We will do more.

Think about why you are here. At our core, we are all about working together to increase the margin of safety, because without that, we have nothing.

Maintaining the highest levels of safety, while adapting to technological advancements, is a key part of that success for all of us, here and around the world. Without safety as a foundation, we cannot have a vibrant aviation industry in any country, much less between countries. As it is, our international air transportation network is a tightly woven fabric that is dependent on all of us making safety our core value.

People: That brings me to my final pointpeople. We live in an exciting time in aviation, with new emerging technologies and capabilities. Ive told some that this might be the most exciting time in aviation since the introduction of the jet engine or maybe even all the way back to the DC-3. But at its core, a huge technical operations and regulatory agency like the FAA is made of peoplepeople who are driven to serve, people with families, hopes and dreams, people who want satisfying and fulfilling careers. I have the utmost respect for the job that they do every day, making sure our skies are safe and that the operation of the system is as efficientand serves the publicas well as it possibly can. Its now time to show that next generation of aviation leaders what incredible opportunities lie ahead for them in our field, both personally and professionally. It is the people who will innovate and collaborate to take us to the next level of safety, operational excellence and opportunity.

Conclusion

Aviations hard lessons and the industrys hard work have paved the way to creating a global aviation system with an enviable safety record. But as I said earlier, safety is a journey, not a destination. What we have done in the past and what we are doing now will not be good enough in the future. We must build on the lessons learned, and we must never allow ourselves to become complacent.

Those lessons teach us that in order to prevent the next accident from happening, we have to look at the overall aviation system and how all the pieces interact. If we dont do this and instead focus on a single factor, we will miss opportunities to improve our margin of safety.

That will require truly integrated data, enterprise-wide. When our dataand our organizationsare kept in silos, we may miss information that could provide an opportunity to make important safety decisions that will improve processes or even prevent accidents entirely. We have to be constantly learning from each other regulator and those we regulateto help each other improve. Thats the only way the system is going to get better.

We at the FAA are prepared to take the lead in this new phase of system safety, a task we approach with a spirit of humility and openness. Thats a strength we have as a country. We will lead. We have to.

Thank you for your time and hospitality today. I look forward to serving and getting to know the Aero Club and its members much better in the coming years. Its great to be with youeven if were inside the Beltway!