More on NASA's ASRS program
The information comes to the ASRS from reports made by people like you - pilots, students, and flight instructors who are operating in the system and observe or experience an anomaly that bears the government's immediate or future attention. For example, charting errors and defective navigation aids have been caught and corrected through reports made by pilots. Confusing procedures have been highlighted and then simplified to help make flight safer. And, trends have been noted that could be used to modify the training curriculum or checklist procedures.
NASA treats your report as confidential and will anonymously forward the information it contains to the FAA, unless the report involves criminal activity or an aircraft accident. According to NASA, more than 300,000 reports have been submitted to date, and no reporter's identity has ever been breached. That's good news. And, if the event you're reporting involves an activity for which the FAA takes enforcement action to suspend your pilot certificate or collect a fine from you, an ASRS report filed in a timely fashion may give you immunity from the enforcement action. Remember, the FAA is legally prohibited from gaining and using information from an ASRS report against a pilot, but the FAA may find out about the event from another source. The FAA enforcement protection and benefit is good news, too.
For all, the ASRS Web site sums up the program as "a small but important facet of the continuing effort by government, industry, and individuals to maintain and improve aviation safety. The ASRS collects voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident/situation reports from pilots, controllers, and others. The ASRS acts on the information these reports contain. It identifies system deficiencies, and issues alerting messages to persons in a position to correct them. It educates through its newsletter Callback, its journal ASRS Directline, and through its research studies. Its database is a public repository which serves the FAA's and NASA's needs and those of other organizations worldwide which are engaged in research and the promotion of safe flight."
Many of the ASRS reports come from crews on commercial aircraft, maybe because they are in the system more often or because they may have a higher awareness that the ASRS exists. Still, it is a program that works to the benefit of all users, and the fruits of the reports can help in all facets of aviation, including flight training. For example, ASRS issued a Directline report titled "Communications-Related Incidents in General Aviation Dual Flight Training" prepared by Kamil Etem and Marcia Patten. The authors of that article cited a survey of ASRS database reports about incidents involving general aviation aircraft which revealed that one-third of the GA incidents were associated with communication difficulties. They examined ASRS reports that specifically referenced communication-related conduct in a dual-instruction flight training environment.
As a result of the study, Etem and Patten came up with several approaches to resolving communication problems that could typically be experienced by flight instructors and their students. For example, instructors should consider emphasizing the importance of standard phraseology in communications with ATC; delay critiques until after tiedown to allow for maximum attention to be given to the flight activity; and when appropriate, use the word trainer on flight plans or in radio transmissions to put ATC on notice of the nature of the operation, helping to guard against missed clearances and readbacks. These approaches make sense and will not only help to make the flight training operation safe, but will probably also help to prevent inadvertent violations of the federal aviation regulations.
You can learn much more about the aviation benefits of program and the types of reports that are being made by other pilots by checking the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System's Web site. It is a win-win program.
Kathy Yodice is an attorney with Yodice Associates in Washington, D.C., which provides legal counsel to AOPA and administers AOPA's Legal Services Plan. She is an instrument-rated private pilot.
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