FAA’s Dickson Promises PRD Soon

The long-delayed electronic Pilot Records Database (PRD), required by US legislation more than 10 years ago, is “in final review,” according to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, speaking to a virtual Town Hall of the National Business Aviation Association. Dickson, however, did not specify exact timing for the new rule.

The NBAA has raised objections about requiring their corporate aircraft pilots to be included in a database aimed at airline hiring. “We’ve tried to take into account all the perspectives. Certainly, the NBAA perspective has been very valuable, and I know what the concerns have been,” Dickson said.

He concluded that the rule must be applicable to the operator while also achieving “the safety benefit in terms of the database for which the rule was developed.”

The National Transportation Safety Board’s chair, Robert Sumwalt, had recently criticized the lack of action on the PRD, which was stimulated by the February 2009 Colgan Air tragedy. See Sumwalt’s comments here.

Dickson also addressed the upcoming safety management systems (SMS) rulemaking requiring SMS for Part 135, MROs, and manufacturers. In 2015, the FAA required that Part 121 airlines establish SMS practices across their organizations by March 2018.

“I realize that business aviation has some unique challenges, and one size does not fit all when it comes to safety programs,” Dickson acknowledged. “But I think we can all agree that the basic concepts of SMS – having a safety policy, performing safety risk assessments, taking action on the results and communicating this to all levels of the organization – are very positive improvements to safety culture, even in a variety of the ways they are scaled and implemented across different operators.

“The approach that we want to take is not prescriptive,” the Administrator added. "How those are implemented and the kind of resources it takes will be dependent on the operator.”

“These are not just programs sitting on the shelf," said Dickson. "They’re living and breathing programs.”

The effectiveness of an SMS effectiveness depends on a commitment from a company's top leadership to all the other employees. Dickson cited the NTSB investigation of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash, in which the operator involved had a voluntary SMS, supported by a contractor. The program appeared to "check the boxes, but the reality was SMS was not a way of life.” the FAA leader said.