Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating 17 instances where 11 air carriers did not comply with mandated safety directives. The inquiries are part of a major audit of all 117 U.S. air carriers that ran in two phases from March until the end of June. According to Robert Sturgell, acting FAA administrator, the agency found that in 5,628 audits of airworthiness directives (ADs), airlines were in compliance in 98 percent of the time. For the other two percent, the carriers resolved any issues before flying their aircraft again. Noncompliance was categorized in five ways: where the carrier could not show AD compliance, where additional records were required, where the carrier performed the work, but applied for an alternate approval method, where the AD work was incomplete but the aircraft was not flying and other minor discrepancies that did not involve ADs. The results of the audit give FAA confidence that “overall, the system is safe and in almost every instance the airlines are complying with out safety directives,” he says, adding that the agency continues to focus on refining the language in ADs “to make sure they are clear, concise and unambiguous.”
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