FAA: expect no new regs from crashes

A meeting late last month between the FAA’s top regulatory officials and business aviation interests will likely result in renewed emphasis on new and existing aviation safety programs rather than any sweeping regulatory changes. The meeting came in the aftermath of six fatal turbine business aircraft accidents since late October. According to National Air Transportation Association president James Coyne, the “real meat of the program” was FAA officials’ recognizing the need to bring a safety management system culture into the Part 135 charter world and indirectly into the Part 91 world. “There was concern at the FAA as to whether this unusual set of events over the past four months is a kind of reversal of the [accident] trend or whether this was just a statistical anomaly,” Coyne told AIN. Meanwhile, NBAA reiterated its concern about the methods the FAA uses to track the safety record for business aviation, “which produces an unclear and misrepresentative depiction of the true safety record for business aircraft.”