Aviation safety : FAA and DOD response to similar safety concerns

921757PDFTech ReportGAO-02-77Aviation safetyCase studiesCommunicationResource allocationFederal government agenciesMilitary aviationOversightCivil aviationOperationsUnited StatesUnited States. General Accounting OfficeUnited States. Government Accountability OfficeNTL-AVIATION-Aviation Safety/AirworthinessUS Transportation CollectionReport to the Honorable Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.Safety of aircraft is a paramount concern in both civilian and military aviation. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the military services often face common safety issues. However, in some cases FAA and the military services have taken different actions to address similar aviation safety concerns. To shed more light in this area, the General Accounting Office (GAO) used a case study approach supplemented by a review of FAA's and the Department of Defense's (DOD) aviation safety oversight processes and related interdepartmental communication efforts to (1) examine different responses by FAA and DOD/military services to similar aviation safety concerns and (2) assess the processes used by FAA and DOD to communicate information about similar aviation safety concerns. For one of the two cases that GAO reviewed where FAA and the military services reacted differently to similar aviation safety concerns, the differences reflect the agency's and services' different missions and operational environments. In the second case, the military services have reacted more slowly than civil aviation due to resource tradeoffs between aviation safety and other mission-readiness issues