Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) in 1996 was commissioned by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to study data-driven methods for evaluating and managing the airworthiness of aircraft, aircraft systems and aircraft components. (An aircraft, aircraft system or aircraft component is considered airworthy when it accomplishes its intended function in a safe manner.)

The Foundation launched the Continuing Airworthiness Risk Evaluation (CARE) study. Under the direction of the FSF technical staff, researchers sought to determine whether current information sources can be used better to identify and quantify factors influencing maintenance through the full service lives of aircraft, aircraft systems and aircraft components to ensure their airworthiness.

The FSF CARE Study Team’s report, “Continuing Airworthiness Risk Evaluation (CARE): An Exploratory Study,” was presented in the September–October 1999 Flight Safety Digest. [PDF 2,744K]

The report, which provided a snapshot of a small part of the aviation industry, included the following findings:

• “Within the U.S. government, the industry and safety organizations, there are many databases and database-analysis systems relevant to aviation safety issues (for example, accidents/incidents, human error, hardware reliability and software adequacy);

• “Private data could provide useful augmentation of public databases for proactive safety purposes, but methods of using private data without compromising proprietary information and competitive business issues must be developed;

• “Private data, as well as public data, are in a variety of software formats and software applications that make the most efficient use of them difficult. Formats that are suitable for a limited use of the data are likely to be unsuitable for correlations or combining of the data elements. Since the early 1990s, the [FAA] Office of System Safety has been able to perform some data translation, aggregation and analysis through the National Aviation Safety Data Analysis Center (NASDAC);

• “Perceptions about misuse of private data create a reluctance to share safety data, and this will impede expanded use of private data for an integrated and unified method of aviation safety improvement;

• “Selective data sharing within the industry is providing some benefits, but far fewer than would be derived from a wider sharing of information from individual flight operational quality assurance (FOQA) programs; more often, results — not raw data — are shared. Efforts are under way to go beyond the organizational level to share information with a wider audience; and,

• “Inadequate feedback of government analysis of data to the suppliers of the data — the operators and manufacturers — results in a reluctance to report events. Producers of information who believe that required reporting does not provide a reasonable return of benefits (a ‘one-way system’) are not likely to participate with enthusiasm. Often data have been collected; the issues are how to make more effective use of data, how to select data better and how to reduce the volume of data.”

The report included several recommendations for better use of current data systems and for improvement of data systems and procedures to ensure continuing airworthiness.

The FSF CARE Study Team members were: John H. Enders, president of Enders Associates International and former FSF chairman and president; Robert S. Dodd, Ph.D., president of Dodd and Associates, and FSF manager of data systems and analysis; and Frank C. Fickeisen, a consultant to The Boeing Co. and other aviation companies on aircraft-certification projects.

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