The Federal Aviation Administration announced in a Feb. 28 a news release it is still striving to improve its aircraft certification processes by expanding the use of independent review groups.

The FAA says it expanded its employment of "independent groups of internal and external safety experts," which will be responsible for certifying commercial aircraft, small aircraft and drones. These reviews, called Technical Advisory Boards, will aid the agency in maintaining a consistent approach to all aircraft certification projects.

"During a TAB review, technical specialists, who are independent of a certification project they are reviewing, become familiar with the proposed design or design change and how it will meet the FAA’s certification regulations," the release states.

The goal of a TAB review is to mitigate the risk of adopting new technologies or designs that might result in disaster by performing secondary design assessments on projects outside of the manufacturer's evaluation.

The independent groups that conduct these reviews have been trained in FAA standards and will apply those requirements to the assessment process in order to identify any design flaws or new technologies that might cause future difficulties.

The increased usage of TABs actually extends beyond the FAA's minimum requirements because they are utilized earlier in the verification process and specifically tailored to the size of a project.