In 2007 the FAA implemented the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing – ASIAS, system help identify and address safety risks but the system’s predictive capabilities are years away and the program lacks data from non-commercial aviation sectors, the Transportation inspector general has found.
It said the agency has made significant progress with implementing and encouraging participation in ASIAS since 2007, and the program now captures key confidential voluntary safety data from 95 percent of all Part 121 operations.
However, the FAA does not allow its inspectors and analysts to use ASIAS’s confidential data for air carrier oversight due to complex data protection agreements.
Further, more work remains before the program becomes the predictive tool that FAA has envisioned, and the FAA continues to face data quality and standardization challenges with voluntarily reported safety data in ASIAS, according to the IG.
Finally, it said safety reporting for other important segments of the aviation industry, such as general aviation operations, is still evolving, and those segments have not yet realized the benefits of ASIAS participation.
Although many inspectors feel access to national-level trends from voluntary safety programs would improve air carrier oversight, the FAA has not yet disseminated these data and safety trends to the field, according to the IG.
The FAA agreed to develop and issue guidance on how inspectors are to use aggregated, de-identified ASIAS trends to enhance air carrier safety risk identification and mitigation, including how ASIAS will interact with a safety assurance system – SAS, that is currently under development.
