WASHINGTON,
Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System
(ASRS) recently marked its 30-year anniversary. The confidential reporting
system is widely used by pilots and other airline employees to identify
potential safety hazards.
Established in 1975 under a memorandum of understanding between NASA and
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the system collects, analyzes and
responds to voluntarily submitted aviation safety incident reports to reduce
aviation accidents and improve safety. The confidential reports are also used
to identify deficiencies and discrepancies in the National Aviation System
that need to be remedied.
"Since the implementation of the Aviation Safety Reporting System in 1976,
more than 474,000 reports have been submitted by pilots, mechanics, air
traffic controllers, flight attendants and other airline personnel," said
Linda Connell, director of the ASRS. The system is located at NASA Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Many of those reports have had a
direct impact on making the nation's airways safer, and we're extremely proud
of that safety record."
"ASRS is an excellent tool that has helped us spot rare and infrequent
emerging threats and hazards," said FAA Associate Administrator for Aviation
Safety Nicholas A. Sabatini. "To continue putting downward pressure on the
accident rate, we need this kind of information about trends, about
precursors, and about what is going on every day in the aviation system."
Over the past 30 years the ASRS has issued more than 2,500 safety alerts
to the commercial and private aviation community and approximately 42 percent
of the alert recipients have taken action to correct the hazardous condition
and improve safety.
For example, in 1978 an analysis of ASRS incident data assisted in the
development of new procedures and improved runway and airline taxi marking
systems by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board. In 1991,
another ASRS data analysis helped in the establishment of additional new
procedures and improved runway and taxi marking systems.
In another incident, an ASRS safety alert concerning a passenger's bag in
a DC-10 aircraft that was smoldering due to an animal-shaped butane cigarette
lighter sparked the FAA to issue a notice to airport security personnel to
watch for toy-shaped cigarette lighters.
Data from ASRS has helped lead to revisions in formatting and content of
aviation checklists and manuals for flight crews. Thanks in part to safety
alerts published by the ASRS, the FAA now requires pre-flight inspections for
ice on the outside of the aircraft to reduce the potential for hazardous ice-
buildup on wings and other parts of the aircraft.
ASRS safety information also helped the FAA develop new regulations
requiring increased separation behind Boeing 757 aircraft to reduce wake
turbulence and avoid wake vortices. It has led to new safety regulations
governing the use of passenger electronic devices to reduce their impact on
aircraft communication and navigation systems, and improvements in runway
warning lights and markers.
"The ASRS is the largest repository of aviation human factors incidents in
the world," Connell said. "The system has conducted more than 5,800 database
searches for government agencies, students, research organizations, aircraft
manufacturers and a wide variety of other organizations. We're particularly
proud that in the 30 years of its existence, the ASRS has never breached the
confidentiality of its reporting system."
Through its Web site the ASRS has provided public access to a wide variety
of aviation safety information, publications, database reports, and the
confidential incident report forms. The ASRS has become a model for safety
reporting systems worldwide and spawned the creation of the Patient Reporting
System, among others.
For information about ASRS on the Internet, visit:
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home
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