National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah Hersman says the Safety Board will continue to press the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on implementing safety recommendations issued in the wake of NTSB accident investigations.

Stated the new head of the Safety Board: “I will push the recipients of our safety recommendation letters to raise the bar of their own accountability.  We simply cannot accept, ‘We’re working on it,’ as a satisfactory response from a regulating agency or an operator regarding an identified safety risk.  We will expect the implementation of corrective action and we will expect the risk to be mitigated or, at the very least, the articulation of a clear forecast of when corrective action will be completed. 

“I have been encouraged by new FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt’s recent efforts to act quickly on safety problems.  In August he convened an ARC charged with providing recommendations on fatigue.  This is an issue that has been on our Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements since its inception.  We have seen some negotiated rulemaking activities last for two, three or even 10 years. His quick turnaround time for the ARC was impressive – now we await some real changes to the rules. 

“Furthermore, just a couple of weeks ago, the FAA announced changes to the airspace around New York City, following the mid-air collision over the Hudson River last month.  The NTSB will analyze those actions to see how they track with our recommendations,” Hersman said at an Aero Club luncheon.