Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) for more than a decade has been a vigorous advocate of flight operational quality assurance (FOQA) programs, which involve the collection and analysis of data recorded during flight to improve the safety of flight operations, air traffic control procedures, and airport and aircraft design and maintenance.

The data used in FOQA programs are of the same types stored by digital flight data recorders for accident-investigation purposes, but can be downloaded frequently from quick-access recorders.

FSF workshops in 1989 and 1990 were catalysts for wider implementation of FOQA programs worldwide. In 1993, under contract to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Foundation published findings of a study that has served as the blueprint for FOQA progress in the United States.

FOQA programs currently are used extensively and effectively by airlines in many countries. Despite their record as a proven tool for preventing aircraft accidents, FOQA programs are being used by only a few U.S. airlines because of data-confidentiality issues.

The FAA in 2001 codified enforcement protection for any operator who operates aircraft under a FOQA program approved by FAA. The regulations provide protection against disclosure of certain safety information and security information submitted to the FAA on a voluntary basis.

The Foundation continues to lead the call for wider use of FOQA programs worldwide and for the elimination of constraints that impede the progress of FOQA in the United States.

A comprehensive report on FOQA — including a description of how FOQA works, the costs and benefits of FOQA programs, the history and status of U.S. efforts to implement FOQA, the controversy regarding data confidentiality, and efforts to resolve the controversy — was published in the July–September 1998 Flight Safety Digest [PDF 493K].

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