The 5th Annual FAA International Aviation Safety Forum, which took place December 2-3, in Washington, DC, once again provided a venue for high level and informative discussions about global aviation safety topics. Attending this year’s event were over 450 aviation safety professionals from 37 countries.
It was hosted for the final time by Nick Sabatini, the FAA’s outgoing associate administrator for aviation safety, who noted that the overall worldwide accident rate for one million departures is 1.0, a “remarkable” achievement.
But he said “the aviation industry and regulators still face challenges, including changing business models and rapidly advancing technologies. And this year we face the challenge of faltering economic forecasts and environmental concerns.” Sabatini told the attendees that in the face of such challenges, “we must work together to create a seamless and integrated safety management system: one world, one sky, one mission: safety.”
He was followed on the podium by Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell who said “the purpose of this conference is to further improve upon this global aviation safety record, to address various aspects of aviation, ranging from runway safety and oversight to data sharing and public confidence to learn from each other. That has to be looked at in three respects: where we are now, where are we going, and how we plan to get there.
“If you take a look at where we’ve been in terms of fatalities per 100 million persons on-board, you can see that partnerships, technology, and focusing on the risks is the answer. In the U.S. in 1948, the number of fatalities per 100 million persons on board was near two thousand. Today, it is effectively zero. There was indeed a time in the early, early days of aviation where one in 10 pilots would crash. That’s certainly not the case anymore.
“Thanks to partnership, technology and procedures, we have successfully eliminated or reduced risk in many areas. We know, for example, that precision brings safety, and technology is often the key to precision. We see that with RNP/RNAV.
“But technology and new procedures notwithstanding, there are still remaining risks we still need to tackle. We’re doing everything we can technology-wise on our runways, but it still comes down to the human element. When you’re told to hold short, will you? In a society that expects no risk, we’ve got to make sure we’re doing everything we can,”he stated.
William Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, delivered the keynote address at the opening session of the safety forum.
Voss’s speech examined the important role that regulators play in maintaining the exceptional safety standard in aviation and called on the attendees to honor this commitment as a service to all citizens.
“I can think of few problems I have seen in aviation safety where the solutions were not already known. Aviation safety is limited not by our ability to understand, but our ability to act,” Mr. Voss said. “Our ability to act is limited in turn by our ability to speak clearly to each other and to those that govern us about what we can do and what needs to be done.”
He added: “There is little question that safety management is the way of the future. There is also little question that safety management requires collaboration between labor and regulators. There is not a clear consensus about the proper balance between enforcement and cooperation.
We don’t have a lot of technical problems anymore. We have systemic problems that are sensitive and difficult to address. Perhaps today, we could start by talking with each other about those difficult issues that lie below the surface,” said the air safety expert.
Nick Sabatini will retire on Jan. 3, to be replaced by his deputy, Peggy Gilligan. He took over as associate administrator in October 2001, leading the transformation of the FAA’s safety mission from a reactive stance to one in which increasing amounts of safety data are being assembled and analyzed to predict potential problems before they occur.
It was under Sabatini that the Aviation Safety organization achieved ISO certification, a major victory for his office’s goal of standardizing and institutionalizing its safety practices.
An FAA employee since 1979, Sabatini started out in the Eastern Region, filling a variety of positions. By 1990, he had been named manager of that region’s Flight Standards Service. He moved to Washington, DC, and became director of the service, a position he held until being named associate administrator.
“While improvements in safety are not the work of one man, outstanding leadership is critical to making improvements of that magnitude, and Nick provided that in abundance,” said Sturgell. “He not only demonstrated strong, effective leadership in his own right, but he also fostered it throughout his organization.”
In a message to employees, Sabatini said, “It was a difficult decision to reach because I am so proud to head this organization and to work with such an excellent team of safety professionals. Yet, the time is coming for me to move on to the next chapter of my life.”
Gabe Bruno, a retired FAA manager who is now an independent safety consultant, is no fan of Sabatini. The vocal critic of the FAA’s top level safety official notes that when questioned by the House Transportation Committee about airworthiness directive compliance at Southwest Airlines, Sabatini’s wholly inadequate defense was, “These problems weren’t evident at my level.”
And he questions the FAA’s monitoring of foreign repair station safety. “In today’s world of increasing international economic interdependence, outsourcing to foreign repair stations has rapidly become standard business practice. The FAA has failed to standardize its own business to address the additional safety risks this new environment presents.”
Stated Bruno: “Sabatini is leaving behind a management culture of non-accountability, an organization permeated with cronyism, and one with an overall lack of motivation to honor the public trust. His leadership has resulted in an organization wracked by whistleblower disclosures, IG investigations and Congressional inquiries. As Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) stated, “The FAA needs a house cleaning from top to bottom.” Unless this cleansing is done, Sabatini will have set the stage for further laxity, lack of oversight and further scandals.”