Today, the Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced The Safe Aircraft Maintenance Standards Act, legislation that would strengthen the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) oversight of repair stations located outside the United States.
“Aviation safety must be priority number one, no matter what” said Chair DeFazio. “For years the FAA has been too slow to act on recommendations from its own Inspector General to do more to close the gap between our safety standards and those of foreign repair stations. The bill I’m introducing today establishes one standard of safety regardless of where the aircraft is maintained. I look forward to moving this common-sense bill through committee and getting it signed into law without delay.”
The legislation will improve safety and security at foreign repair stations by requiring:
- Unannounced FAA inspections for foreign repair stations. Require that all foreign repair stations be subject to at least one unannounced safety inspection each year.
- Minimum qualifications for mechanics and others working on U.S.-registered aircraft at foreign repair stations. Require supervisors and mechanics to be certificated under FAA regulations, regardless of location (e.g., technical fluency in English, completion of FAA testing, and demonstration of certain knowledge and skills).
- Data analysis. Require air carriers to submit a detailed maintenance report to the FAA monthly, and for the FAA to analyze these reports, along with existing data inputs, to detect safety issues.
- A moratorium on FAA certification of new foreign repair stations if the FAA does not implement congressional mandates within one year.
- FAA to create a repository for carriers to report heavy maintenance history by location and specific aircraft registration number, as well as other safety personnel metrics.
