[Peetwo]

Regulator envy - FAA practicing what they preach.

Recently Christine Negroni published the following article on the less than impressive safety culture of US Allegiant Air:

Allegiant’s Record No Indicator of Safety
July 18, 2016 / Share your comments...


Credit to Paige Kelton of Jacksonville’s WJAX-TV, for doing the heavy lift and reviewing 2,400 pages of FAA incident reports on Allegiant Air. In her report last week, Kelton reveals that the documents show seventy-six flights into Florida over a two year period had safety issues grave enough to require they be reported to the feds.

Where I’ll argue with the report is in the conclusion of her safety expert who credits the pilots for the fact that the airline hasn’t had any fatal accidents.

Allegiant’s pilots may be fantastic but attributing the lack of a catastrophe on the flight crew is a two edged sword. When disaster arrives will the pilots be to blame?
An Allegiant 757 in Honolulu

Anyone with a passing interest in air safety understands that an accident is a series of events. Remove one and it doesn’t happen. When news stories or talking heads diminish this complexity they risk turning the folks in the pointy end into heroes or demons. Rarely are they either, though they are always important, integral parts of a safety system.

The FAA has been doing a 90 day review of Allegiant after a number of headline-making events over the past few years including the embarrassing case of Allegiant Flight 426 with two management pilots in command. The crew failed to notice the temporary closure of Fargo’s Hector International for a Blue Angels air show but were so low on fuel, they had to declare an emergency and land there despite the TFR.

What has already emerged in news accounts and in private comments made to me and to others, is that the penny-pinching that has made the low-cost carrier one of the nation’s top performers is a technique also employed on the backside of the airline.

Safety is viewed as an expense not an investment in the airline’s future, one former employee told me. The cavalier approach to doing things the right way will lead to a “catastrophe” I was told.

Emergency evacuation of an Allegiant flight. Photo courtesy Bryan Dougherty

So Kelton’s deep dive into the gritty details, the smoke events and the navigational problems, the flight cancellations and the diversions is an important story, ratifying the FAA’s decision to do its own deep dive.

If this extra scrutiny convinces the airline to change its ways and give safety the priority it deserves, the very best result will be that Allegiant maintains its status as never having had a fatal accident.

But it cannot say it didn’t push its luck far longer than it should have.

    
And in follow up to that the JDA Journal today reports on the outcome of the FAA 90 day review of Allegiant Air:

Allegiant & Compliant are now Congruent?


Posted By: Sandy Murdock July 26, 2016

FAA’s Compliance Philosophy In Effect With Allegiant

Well over a year ago, the FAA made a seismic change in its basic regulatory regime. Since the creation of the FAA, the safety agency used the fear of sanctions and public embarrassment to compel the airlines to adhere to its rules. The Administrator last summer established a new path emphasizing collaboration, cooperation, compliance and immediate solutions to existing problems. There was some reason to doubt whether the field inspectors and lawyers would follow this pronouncement from on high. The institutional imperatives (diminishing Congressional funding, inability to match old enforcement techniques with staffing reality, SMS’s emphasis on trust in working together) compelled that the new philosophy must work.


During that same time period, the long history of a contentious relationship with Allegiant made the resolution of pending “enforcement” cases into a test of the acceptance of the Huerta approach. There have been a number of statements which did not appear to be in congruence with the SMS/Compliance approach.

On July 18 the news included language suggesting that the FAA personnel involved in the surveillance of Allegiant are on board with the new approach:

“An FAA spokesman said the evaluation, which every airline must undergo every five years, uncovered ‘a number’ of deficiencies. ‘None were systemic regulatory problems, which are the most serious category of deficiencies identified in these types of reviews.’ He said the FAA will ‘closely monitor’ the effectiveness of Allegiant’s mitigations, which are due by Sept. 30.

The FAA has determined that the findings don’t warrant enforcement action at this time.”
[emphasis added]
That’s the language of the new Philosophy; cooperation and compliance, not the ticket-writing jargon of the past.

While that’s a clear positive movement towards the Huerta approach, the next critical inspection point will be the follow up by Allegiant no later than September 30 when it will be determined if the carrier aggressively addresses the agency’s finding PLUS soon thereafter when the FAA replies.

See what I mean by 'regulator envy' -
MTF...P2.

(Pardon me) - Yup; but I can also hear McComic grinding his teeth and salivating during his dream cum true, once in lifetime opportunity to do some real damage.  The question is – which path will OST take, Nirvana or Perdition?  Bravo FAA, bravo and well done. Tt.