More Government Oversight
It has been all over the news — the Bush administration is pushing for more government oversight in order to restore public confidence in imported products like toys and food. The administration’s proposal calls for increased on-site inspections. Instead of relying on spot inspections of foreign-produced products as they enter the U.S., the proposal would shift focus to catching bad products before they are ever exported.
This is an example of the reactionary mentality that the government seems to have. Instead of being proactive and ensuring the imported products were safe to begin with, it now must react to increasing public anger in the wake of recent events.
But what about maintenance oversight? As AMT reported in June , PASS (the union representing FAA employees) has been saying for some time it doesn’t have the resources to properly oversee foreign repair stations. Tom Brantley, national president of PASS said in June, “Inspector staffing has not kept pace with the exploding outsourcing business and nearly half of the workforce will be eligible to retire by 2010; yet, the FAA is refusing to take any steps to rectify the situation.”
We cannot afford to be reactionary when it comes to FAA oversight of foreign repair stations. We need to make sure that foreign repair stations are properly inspected and held to the same standards as U.S. repair stations are. It would be a shame if our government waits until a major incident or accident until it addresses this issue.
Thanks for reading,
Joe Escobar
Well Joe, it is just my opinion, but I dont think the FAA has EVER been worth a darn in providing adiquate or effective oversight of repair stations foreign or domestic. Truth is, that the majority of the oversight comes from customer audits, and others such as the CASE orginization. Once again proving that the private sector, motivated by profits obtained thru product relaibility and safety are far more effective than any goverment burocracy can be. That this fact is well known to the FAA is obvious in the ever increasing regulatory requirements being placed on the 121, 135 operators in the realm of vendor oversight, training etc. In short, they realize that it is more effective to have us police each other. At least that is the view from my cubicle……..
We have always been a reactionary society. Nobody is willing to spend money where it might be needed before hand. Your politicians are not going to spend money before hand because they would get criticized about it. When they spend the money after the fact they now look like the savior. Its a fact. Sorry for the world being this way.
It is amazing that the FAA requires expensive and onerous programs like the drug testing boondoggle on domestic repair stations, yet there are no such requirements for foreign facilities. Plus, many of those same facilities are located in countries that are not friendly to the USA. Let’s see: no pre-employment security checks, no drug screening, no 10-year background checks for new hires, no requirement that technical documentation and/or manuals be in English and no FAA oversight. Sounds like a prescription for aviation safety to me. FAA commonly uses local inspectors to verify the operation is compliant, simply because they have no one who can even read the local documents. We should all petition Congress to prohibit FAA annual recertification of foreign repair stations where we do not have adequate FAA oversight capability. But then again, that makes sense. Logic has little or nothing to do with how FAA operates regarding foreign repair stations. As with most of the regulations, anything new in this area will have to be written in blood.
Scott has the right idea; the responsibility is that of the certificate holder who sends the work to the repair station(s). It is a function of the Reliability Department. Proper oversight requires “continuous analysis,” not just periodic visits.
The visit gives the “feel” of what is going on and assures that the vendor is not conducting business without proper equipment and level of staff. The analysis gets to the bottom of repetitive problems and appropriate corrective actions. The seemingly minor repetitive problems usually lead to the major ones. The oversight is based on the nature of the certificate holder’s type of flying conditions and only they can analyse the needs or type of preventive maintenance required. Even the manufacturer of the component who conducts repair station activity needs the certificate holder’s analysis (through engineering orders and workscope instructions)to know the extent and how to proceed with the overhaul and repair.
When the reliability department is working properly and all is going smoothly, the certificate holder is inclined to believe that the reliability personnel are not really needed and start thinking about lay-offs. Good managers recognize this and protect their department.
Frequent activity with the repair station helps to provide a minimum acceptance level of employee qualifications, drug testing, and training based on economic incentive to do the work properly but, more importantly, maintains the desired safety level with real problem solving solutions.