Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
Some points:
Repeated non-compliance (the same issue coming up over and over again and the certificate holder (airline) failing to take effective action to address the problem) is a valid reason to exclude a report. From AC 120-68:
And the FAA representative always has the option to override the ERC. Again, rare, but repeated high altitude stall events and failure to correct may be a reason for this.
Second, there's some talk of sole-source and non-sole-source. In general, this is not a significant criteria in terms of accepting a report, the program office is very clear that they want to accept every report that they can (which meets program criteria). Sole-source is automatically excepted, but it has to be some pretty extenuating circumstances for a non-sole-source to not be accepted.
Last, NASA ASRS only waives an enforcement (if something ever gets to that level, very rare these days due to Compliance Program) penalty. That's very important to understand. It means an enforcement still goes on your record, that you violated such and such CFR, only that the punishment gets waived, so you don't actually get suspended or whatever. These days enforcement cases only tend to be written up for fairly egregious events when the individual does not want to cooperate to try and fix the underlying issue. But realize those ASRS reports do not waive the decision or what goes on your record, only the penalty.
Good point on the NSRS. Also, if you do use it to avoid enforcement, you have to wait 5 years before being able to use that again.
As for repeated non-compliance, I see you referenced an AC. But I believe the controlling document is the MOU, which is a legal document signed by all three parties. Maybe it’s different with a non-union work group? But regardless, the point of one party leaving the ASAP MOU, is that it puts pressure on the FAA, or maybe in this case, the company, to make things right before re-entering the MOU and start capturing this time sensitive safety data. After all, the whole point of the FAA is to maintain the highest standards of safety. And if they take such drastic measures that it causes a party to leave the MOU, maybe it will cause pause for them to take such actions. That was my point, it puts pressure on actually fixing the issue rather than letting them just be punitive. It also goes against the FAA’s Just Culture. There’s probably a whole other AC, FAA Order, FAA Memorandum, etc on the subject of Just Culture. They shouldn’t have just rolled over on this and put the pilots in a place where they operate in the NAS with fear for their livelihood as a motivating factor in their decision making.