Safety; rules vs freedoms

[kontiki]

I think the FAA isn't all that concerned with safety of pilots, it's the passengers that they really protect. There are a lot of dense safety analysis documents out there.

https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/Flight_Safety_Analysis_Handbook_final_9_2011v1.pdf

I just googled a couple.The current value of a human life is around 13 million. I have seen the FAA and EASA disagree on safety benefit of a proposed mandatory airline mod. The reality is they have different air traffic management problems.

 

[Rene]

The FAA regulates by accident

Which is exactly what was said about the British Board of Trade 150 years ago. Only the subject was Victorian era railways.

 

[Rene]

An even bigger reason behind a majority of the FARs in general is due to ICAO member requirements. The whole point of ICAO was to provide a common regulatory standard between countries to faciliate growth of the international aviation industry. Without that agreement signed in 1944, aviation would have never achieved the levels it did in the same timeframe.

In 1944, ICAO was the CAA and the CAB and their British equivalent.

 

[StraightnLevel]

The FAA regulates by accident

This is not unique to the FAA. In fact, it’s a requirement for implementation of nearly any regulatory measure, as humans won’t accept a restriction on their behavior without being given a reason behind it that they can readily visualize.

Think about what would have happened if a member of Congress had proposed the TSA in 1999. What would the public reaction have been? I would wager that without 9/11 those intrusive government “security” procedures would never have been tolerated by the traveling public.

Another example: The head-and-neck restraint concept in motorsports was developed in the early 1980s by a racing engineer who had seen basal skull fractures in otherwise minor racing collisions, and came up with a very effective solution (head-neck restraint). When Dale Earnhardt died in 2001 at Daytona - 20 years later - only 6 drivers in the field were using it. Later that same year NASCAR made it mandatory; less than 2 years later F1 adopted it as well, and within a few years everyone racing at all but the very lowest amateur levels had one in their bag. Even though many, many deaths could have been prevented over those 20 years, it took the death of a “household name” celebrity to change drivers’ behavior.

[FWIW, my company is a primary sponsor of the electrical safety group for a major international engineering organization. We see this pattern far too often, and it’s everywhere we look.]

 

[Bell206]

In 1944, ICAO was the CAA and the CAB and their British equivalent.

Don't forget the legacy version of the French DGAC as well. The ICAO Annexes are basically culmination of those 3 regulatory systems. And if you look at a number of other international NAAs, you'll find many are merely a copy of one of those 3 systems depending on whose sphere of influence they were under.

 

[AV8R_87]

This is not unique to the FAA.

Nope, we're all resistant to change and highly opinionated in the process.
The FAA has a "Lessons Learned" website, good information there on what drove some of the rule changes.

https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned

 

[kontiki]

The FAA regulates by accident

I have heard these called sentinel events. Those are events that reveal a weakness, learning from them and making corrections is part of an adaptive feedback process. You don't ever want to participate in a sentinel event. They tend not to end well.

 

[Rene]

You don't ever want to participate in a sentinel event. They tend not to end well.

Grandpa says everyone is entitled to one fatal mistake.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I disagree that the FAA does a great job of adopting regulations that promote a high level of safety for Part 91 ops. If you have adopted the Part 61 and 91 regulations as a private pilots for your minimums, your safety standards are rather low IMO.

Yep. The FAA doesn't much care if you kill yourself. They maybe care a little about your friends and family. They definitely care about unsuspecting paying passengers, and even more so about non-participants (ie, people on the ground).

That said, aviation is a very wide subject, such that if you had to learn a little about everything to be a pilot, well, none of us would be pilots. They simply give you the notion that for things like mountain flying, backcountry flying, aerobatics, etc etc you might want to go get some additional instruction.