Aviation Industry Safety: National Transportation Safety Board statistics show an accident rate of 5 fatalities for every 10 million flights on scheduled and non-scheduled airline services U.S. airlines operating under Part 121 of the Federal Aviation Regulations 1982 through 1998.—The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for examining an airline's operations when the airline requires a certificate to operate and for conducting periodic inspections to ensure continued compliance with safety regulations.-The FAA has nearly 3,300 safety inspectors located in 101 district offices throughout the United States*S. One of the primary functions of the inspector is to conduct what the FAA calls "routine surveillance" - a process of continuous periodic safety inspections of airlines and aviation - related activities. Inspections cover four main areas: - Operational inspections focus on items such as pilot certification and performance, flight crew training and flight record keeping. Maintenance inspections examine an airline's overall maintenance program, including the training of aircraft mechanics, the development of maintenance manuals, and procedures for repairing aircraft and their components. Avionics inspections focus on the electronic components of the aircraft. Cabin safety inspections focus on cabin procedures, passenger safety and carry-on baggage. The aviation oversight system largely addresses past concerns raised about key aspects of FAA aviation safety inspections and the usefulness of inspection data. - To improve the quality of inspections, the new program emphasizes a system safety approach that goes beyond spot-checking airlines for compliance with federal aviation regulations. Using security......in the center of the sheet......distinguish major violations from minor ones. For all of these reasons, the FAA's information on aviation compliance is incomplete. Incomplete information compromises the accuracy of key databases available to the FAA to identify trends in violations and direct its resources toward the greatest potential threats to aviation safety. Furthermore, the FAA cannot readily use the results of its inspections as an early warning system. The two reasons most frequently cited by inspectors for not opening enforcement cases stemmed from changes in the FAA's enforcement philosophy. Nine in 10 flight standards inspectors (89%) and safety inspectors (86%) said compliance is more important in the long run than enforcement. Likewise, 9 in 10 believe that achieving immediate compliance is more important than taking enforcement action.