This will be the year of ATOS - the Air Transportation Oversight System - for regional carriers.

The comprehensive safety system review that was developed after the 1996 ValuJet crash will be implemented this year at several regional carriers. The ins and outs of ATOS will be part of the Regional Airline Association's conference in St. Louis this week. It will be one of several pressing topics the safety directors will discuss, said David Lotterer, the RAA's vice president for technical services.

"In the past, the Federal Aviation Administration would just look at an airplane's compliance with the rules. ATOS will look at the safety system to determine if a carrier's system is sufficiently robust so that you won't get in trouble at some point in time because your system should account for all the regulations," he said.

After the January 2000 crash of an Alaska Air [ALK] jetliner, ATOS inspections were established for the 10 largest carriers. Lotterer said the FAA wants to extend the oversight system to all commercial carriers.

"American Eagle, ExpressJet [XJT] and SkyWest [SKYW] have been told they are up for ATOS inspections this year," he said.

As recently as a year ago, the FAA was criticized by its Inspector General for not having the funds or the staffing to fully implement the system. "Unfortunately, ATOS has never been fully implemented. When ATOS is fully implemented in all Part 121 carriers, according to the FAA's own estimation, the agency will have a staffing shortfall of approximately 259 inspectors. As a result of attrition and the agency shifting money to other priorities, inspector staff has now declined to the number approximating those prior to the ValuJet accident," the 2003 report stated.

Lotterer said a separate RAA working group will be meeting to make suggestions to the FAA so that the ATOS method is "more compatible" for regional carriers.

David Gilliom, who heads the FAA's ATOS project, will be attending the RAA meeting.

The FAA and RAA will also use the safety director's meeting as an opportunity to solicit comments on a soon-to-be-released guidance on how to better place and balance weight on small planes. The FAA has had a working group, with industry representatives, meeting since last July to perform a comprehensive review and rewrite of the FAA advisory circular on aircraft weight and balance control.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that an improper loading a Beech 1900D contributed to the January 2003 crash of an Air Midwest plane (CRAN, March 8). While improperly performed maintenance of the plane's elevator likely caused the crash, investigators determined the plane was overweight and out-of- balance. The plane's crew could have compensated for the extra heavy load even with the poorly adjusted elevator if the weight had been balanced, the NTSB concluded.

>>Contact: David Lotterer, RAA, (202) 367-1170.<<