Aircraft Maintenance: FAA Needs to Follow Through on Plans to Ensure the Safety of Aging Aircraft

In the first quarter of fiscal year 1994 FAA terminated a contracting effort to collect these data. This was due in part to FAA's: (1) request to the principal maintenance inspectors (PMI) to provide information on the Structural Modification Program; (2) reliance on information provided through the Program Tracking and Reporting System (PTRS) and FAA's surveillance activities; (3) focused aging aircraft inspections as part of NASIP; and (4) diminishing resources. According to FAA, information from the first three activities will allow FAA management to acquire a status on the fleet. These actions, if properly implemented, will fulfill the intent of this recommendation. In January 1995, GAO testified that FAA had, in fact, collected detailed information on airline compliance with airworthiness directives for some of the aging aircraft fleet and had initiated another effort to collect it for the remaining fleet.

On October 30, 1995, FAA issued revised guidance to inspectors clarifying the existing procedures in FAA Order 8300.10, "Airworthiness Inspector's Handbook," which defines and describes surveillance activities conducted on airworthiness directives. The new guidance was included in change 10 to the handbook. The new guidance requires inspectors to enter the number of each airworthiness directive verified and the complete inspection results, including the type of directive verified during an inspection, in the Program Tracking and Reporting System (PTRS) comments section. With this information in PTRS, FAA management can clearly determine which directives are being verified by querying PTRS files.

The NASIP inspections with an aging aircraft component are intended to be scheduled so that an aging aircraft is available. These inspections are scheduled by contacting the assigned principal maintenance inspector to determine when an operator has scheduled an aging aircraft. Since NASIP inspections are planned in advance around the operator's schedule, modifications to that schedule have, on some occasion in the past, affected aircraft availability. However, by working more closely with operators, availability issues have been resolved. Based on the process that now exists, the intent of the recommendation has been fully implemented.

On October 30, 1995, FAA issued guidance to inspectors incorporating information from Action Notice 8300.74, Surveillance of Aircraft Undergoing Heavy Inspections, which provides guidance pertaining to structure spot inspections (PTRS code 3647) with emphasis on aging aircraft-related structural spot inspections. The new guidance was included in change 10 to the handbook. The new guidance requires inspectors to include, in the PTRS comments section, the age of the aircraft and whether the purpose of the operator's inspection was aging aircraft-related. In addition, the national use block of the PTRS form will be labeled "AGING." FAA will then be able to track the inspections to determine the extent to which structural spot inspections are being used to monitor aging aircraft.