Odyssey of a Report • Apparently, the Aviation in and data extracted from the JUNE 1978 Safety Reporting Program has report-date, time, location and not been advertised well type of occurrence-is Volume 8 Number 6 enough because there are still punched into NASA's a lot of people who don't know computerized 45-day file. how to submit a report or what The report is then handed happens to the report once over to a pilot/attorney, who Secretary of Transportation, Brock Adams they do. screens it to determine if it in­ Administrator, FAA It's really quite simple. Let's Langhorne M. Bond volves an accident or criminal Assistant Administrator-Public Affairs, take a hypothetical example of activity or if it contains infor­ Peter Clapper a pilot who misunderstands a mation that needs to be Chief-Public & Employee Communications Div., clearance, deviates from his brought to someone's attention John G. Leyden assigned altitude and finds immediately. If not, the Editor, Leonard Samuels himself in conflict with other report-along with the 20-25 Art Director, Eleanor M. Maginnis air traffic. After deciding to other reports NASA receives report the incident to NASA, he daily-is placed in a locked may pick up a reporting form pouch and carried by bonded FAA WORLD is published monthly for the (NASA ARC Form 277, to be courier to the Battelle Institute employees of the Department of Transpor­ exact) from an airport, office just up the road from tation/Federal Aviation Administration and fixed-based operator or any NASA. There are only two keys is the official FAA employee publication. It is FAA facility and has five days to the pouch: one at NASA and prepared by the Public & Employee Com­ to report the incident.The five­ one at Battelle. The contents of munications Division, Office of Public Af­ day time limit applies only to the pouch are receipted at both fairs, FAA, 800 Independence Ave. SW, those situations where the ends to make sure all the Washington, D.C. 20591. Articles and reporter wishes to take reports make it to their photos for FAA WORLD should be submit· advantage of the waiver of destination safely. ted directly to regional FAA public affairs disciplinary action. (See "The At Battelle, the report is • officers: Mark Weaver-Aeronautical Cen­ . ter; Clifford Cernick-Alaskan Region; 45-Day File.") assigned to one of four Joseph Frets-Central Region; Robert Ful­ The reporting form is easy to analysts. The analyst studies ton-Eastern Region; Neal Callahan-Great fill out. It is divided into two the report and may determine lakes Region; Michael Benson-NAFEC; parts: The top section is the that further information is Mike Ciccarelli-New England Region; identification strip where the necessary. If so, he will David Myers-Northwest Region; George pilot is asked to give his name, telephone the pilot who Miyachi-Pacific-Asia Region; David Olds­ address and telephone number reported the incident and add Rocky Mountain Region; Jack Barker­ so that he can be contacted the supplemental data to the Southern Region; K. K. Jones-Southwest later by NASA for further report. About 10 percent of the Region; W. Bruce Chambers, acting­ details, if necessary. The reports require a call back. Western Region bottom portion solicits such Once the analyst is finished information as the type of with the identification strip, it operation and the kind of is separated from the rest of aircraft involved, conditions at the report and returned to the time of the incident, NASA, which sends it back to weather, airspace where the the reporter. The pilot should incident occurred, etc. It's like hold on to that ticket, because it a multiple choice test: all the is proof that he filed a report on pilot has to do is pick the item the altitude deviation in a most closely describing the timely fashion. incident he was involved in. Finally, the "deidentified" ERRATA Space also is provided for a report is handed over to a Bat­ Credit for the beautiful photographs of clear and precise narrative telle diagnostician, who Guam and its denizens in the April issue of description of the incident. translates items in the report FAA WORLD was inadvertently omitted. After that, it's merely a into appropriate language for They are the work of George Miyachi, public matter of folding the form and the computer. The data then is affairs officer in the Pacific-Asia Region dropping it in the mail, where it entered into the computer and goes to P.O. Box 189 at Moffett stored there until it is retrieved The cover: From the field-from ATCSs, Field, Calif. There it is logged for special reports or studies. inspectors, technicians, pilots, FBOs--more than 5,000 reports a year are being filed with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under FAA's Aviation Safety Reporting Program. The program has come of age, as the story at right reveals. The Aviation Safety Reporting System IS ALIVE AND WELL confidential reports submitted to NASA by pilots, controllers and others who spot safety problems in the national aviation system. The office is located about two miles up the road from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., where the NASA personnel who manage the reporting system and initially process the confidential reports are located. (See box: "Odyssey of a Report.") The security at Ames is equally strict. So strict, in fact, that Bill NASA attorney Bill Reynard, who holds Reynard, an attorney/pilot with NASA, a commercial pilot's license with in­ says: "We have been accused of being ( strument and multi-engine ratings, paranoid." screens an aviation safety report, one "But," Reynard admits, "we'd rather of 20-25 received daily. be accused of that than be lax about security and have unauthorized personnel come in here and gain access to the information in the reports." The security measures may indeed seem peculiar unless one understands how NASA got involved in the first place. In May 1975, FAA started an Aviation Safety Reporting Program whose rom the corridor it looks like an purpose was to get pilots, controllers ordinary office-the kind of and others to voluntarily submit reports place you expect to enter and to FAA on unsafe conditions, practices be met by the strains of Musak and a or incidents-including those they may waiting room full of patients flipping have caused themselves. The FAA through old magazines. stressed that the purpose of the But the door to this office is locked. program was to improve aviation safety, Only authorized visitors are allowed in, and that the information was not being and they must press a buzzer and wait solicited for enforcement purposes. until someone inside slips the deadbolt Since the response was less than lock with a key. And once inside, they have to sign in and wear a security badge at all times. Security is tight in that office because it's part of the Aviation Safety Reporting System being handled for FAA by the National Aeronautics and Space Admin­ istration. There, a Battelle Institute team under contract to NASA analyzes 3 Ruth Howes, secretary for the Batte/le Institute analysis team, examines a locked pouch to make sure that the avi­ ation safety reports delivered by the bonded courier from NASA are safe and uncompromised. overwhelming-fewer than 1,500 reports during the first year-it was obvious the aviation community was not keen on the idea of telling an enforcement agency about safety problems. So, in 1976, NASA was asked to step in and act as an independent "third party" to receive, process and analyze reports filed under FAA's Aviation Safety Reporting Program. Clearly, the name of the game was to convince would-be reporters that their anonymity would be protected. Judging from the almost 11.000 reports it has received since starting the new reporting system in April 1976, NASA has been successful in that effort. n its latest report, covering the April a 1-June 30, 1977, period, NASA gives examples of the 1,391 reports it received during that quarter. The examples range from communications problems between pilots and controllers and instances of just plan bad judgment to procedural difficulties and breakdowns in equipment. One pilot, for example, landed uneventfully at what he thought was an uncontrolled airport. It wasn't until he had taxied to the ramp and saw the security police truck coming out to greet him that he looked at his sectional chart more carefully and realized that there runway at the same time. received. It turned out that FAA already was indeed a control tower and a tower The fifth quarterly report also was aware of the problem, but the frequency indicated on the chart. indicates that, while the ground­ NASA data served to corroborate FAA's Other examples show that misun­ proximity warning system seems to be a conviction that something needed to be derstandings between controllers and useful backup to crews of done about refining profile-descent pilots about clearances can result in two high-performance aircraft, false procedures. aircraft being on the same active warnings from those safety devices The latest status report further shows were a nuisance and, in some cases, a that almost half of the reports came source of potential safety problems. from controllers (47%), and Profile-descent procedures, introduced approximately the same percentage by the FAA in late 1976 and early 1977 (48%) were filed by flight crew at a few airports, continued to cause members. Moreover, the reports were pilots and controllers headaches, and the report reflects those concerns.