The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not created a database to track poor-performing airline pilots, five years after Congress mandated it, a government report stated on Monday.
The original mandate in 2010 required that ‘the FAA create a pilot records database (PRD) to ensure FAA and air carrier pilot records are retained for the life of the pilot and that air carriers review those records when making hiring decisions.’
This was in response to multiple accidents involving U.S. air carriers which had been attributed in part to errors made by pilots who had been hired without sufficient background safety checks. Between 1987 and 1994, the U.S. airline industry suffered seven major accidents that were attributed in part to pilot error.
The report found that some airlines haven’t begun ensuring that they retain pilot training records, so a future database may not include that information.
The system to log pilot training won’t be completed until at least 2020, the Transportation Department’s Inspector General has said in the report, stating that so far the FAA’s attempts to establish a PRD have been ‘limited’. The report added, ‘the FAA continues to extend internal milestones, making it unclear when the PRD will be fully implemented.’
The Inspector General concluded, “We are making recommendations to improve FAA’s implementation of the PRD and the current process used by air carriers to obtain pilot records during hiring.”
