FAA Administrator Testifies on Aviation Safety & Policy : CSPAN3 : March 5, 2024 8:02pm-11:04pm EST : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive

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inspections by the house transportation subcommittee hearing is about three hours. [background noises] is mick.

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[background noises] >> a subcommittee on a visual consort is unesco's at the chairman authorized to declare recess without objections ordered also ask you nose consent subcommittee and ask questions that objection prints ordered. i was reminded members wishing to insert documents in the record please also e-mail the documents i don't recognize myself for the purpose of an opening statement for five minutes. thank you for being here administrator whitaker. i want to first off congratulate you for your unanimous confirmation vote. as you know achieving something like that in today's times is quite remarkable. really appreciate your expertise head look forward to working with you. i hope you understand the strong support from congress but also

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enormous recognition of the responsibility of the job you've now taken on. we have heard a lot of descriptions about america's aviation industry. everything about it's the gold standard, it's a leading edge of technology we have also seen in recent months we have had incredible challenges in the aviation industry. i cannot say enough the aviation industry needs to be successful. it used to be successful in terms of promoting technology, regulatory stability, safety and importantly often folks lose sight of is the passenger experience. every american enjoys enormous benefits of a collaborative work commercial aviation has never been safer or more prosperous aerospace industry moves hundreds of moans of people every year creates millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in economic activity and a critical

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pillar of national defense maintain your gold standard aviation standard in the united states should be an urgent national priority. but the only guaranteed gold standard but got us there yesterday is not going to be what keeps us there tomorrow. in the past year and as i noted we have seen several aircraft manufacturing defects aircraft while fires, whole passenger air frame destroyed by fire near misses at our airports, pilot mental health issues, general aviation accidents poor airline customer service especially for disabled passengers and other challenges. the subcommittees received testimony about struggles the agency has integrating drones and air mobility's commercial space transportation and cybersecurity into our national airspace updating the technology that is needed to ensure the efficiency and performance of her air traffic control systems.

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for each and every one of those instances you can find a provision in the house passed faa bill to address those issues. i'm going to say that again. for every one of those issues you can find provisions of the house passed faa bill to address these issues. i want to remind you we passed that bill months and months ago well before the september 30 expiration. that did not happen by mistake we worked methodically want to thank german ranking member larsen ranking member: leaders sam graves chairman sam graves and all the aviation team for plowing through literally thousands and thousands of stakeholder, public, member of congress requests that ultimately yielded a strong bipartisan bill. despite the differences the house was successful in passing that bill of a vote of the 351 to 69 similar to your

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confirmation vote in these times that is absolute ordinary. since the passage of the bill has received support from the aviation sector general aviation business aviation, manufacturers manufacturers, innovators, labor members of the faa own workforce commercial aviation, groups representing passengers, airports and on and on. the house produce legislation makes it transformative changes in the passenger experience and a private aviation. it provides innovators of the unmanned aerial systems in advance air mobility space the regulatory certainty they need to deploy some of the most advanced technologies we have seen in aviation. we also make meeting for reforms and processes position agency to manage ever-expanding aviation system the bill contains numerous provisions aimed at improving aviation safety. with all the recent incidents, accidents, near misses and problems there's nothing short of malpractice this cent is not bothered to even mark up the faa

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reauthorization bill. the senate's repeated failure has destroyed 650 million dollars in airport investments this year alone. an delayed enactment urgently needed safety measures and reforms. there's never been a worse time to leave the fa unauthorized at that is where the senate in action has left us. you are doing the best that you can with a job that you have mrs clear to me the senate's inability to do its job has real-world consequences directly affect american leadership in aviation and in the safety of the traveling public we said ready, willing, able to negotiate the reauthorization bill, when the senate is ready hopefully you can do something to help us with that mr. administrator hopefully the conversation we had to beat source underscore the urgency of getting a long-term comprehensive reauthorization bill signed into law. and i yelled. i not recognize ranking member

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cohen for five minutes for an opening statement. >> think it mr. gerry just went to said disgrace every thing he said. we need to fund ukraine in israel the same time quick sound like her to listen to it. [laughter] thank you, mr. chairman. thank you it mr. whitaker for coming before us today such an important time with aviation and we appreciate that. it is important we have leadership that's a thing i heard most from people in the industry and my six, seven, eight months as we need and administer a think everybody's pleased with your selection. we have had the recent problems is not your fault with boeing bg 737 max nine with a japanese airline collision, increase runway incursions have been around for a while. and i know that is on top of your mind is getting something straightened out with the potential intersections of

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airlines on the faa and getting better air traffic controllers or more air traffic controllers and we need to get a pipeline going to get more. the faa prompt response of the january 5 boeing incident is commendable in the grounding of the one or 70 aircraft in which you've done there i think everyone agrees with and appreciates. boeing must be held accountable because as you have said and others have said safety is first that needs to be made clear. as this incident and that max eight crash complacency is a luxury we cannot afford right now it's aviation safety boeing and the faa oversight let's make necessary changes so accidents don't happen again endorsed flying off in the middle of the air and planes falling out of the sky or whatever.

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the faa and ntsb investigations into this as subcommittee will send ready to work with you and all parties from the legislative changes necessary but of course the first thing we need to do is get reauthorization bill passed trade we have done our job now it's your job to get the senate to do their job. i want to thank all the fa employees who work day and night to ensure no stone was left unturned when it came to reviewing max and nine inspection instruction as well as the airline maintenance technicians for implementing these instructions to ensure that aircraft can safely transport passengers again. ntsb chair did a great job she is having some of us over for a briefing later today and showing us some of the problems we appreciate that. she has been thorough. based on what's been communicated to us in the public thus far that work has been outstanding. we must ever can we can to

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pastor next reauthorization the next deadline march 8 is quickly approaching. we need her senate colleagues to act. because we need to make sure air traffic control has more people and more beefed up. there are tricky issues with reauthorization a bipartisan way to find common ground of possibility contains hundreds of provisions that preserve and enhance aviation system and ensure robust future for u.s. aviation. that bill passed by overly bipartisan margin and we hope the senate can be bipartisan as well. i look forward to your testimony. i push at the work of chairman graves, ranking member larsen and the other chairman we put together good bill we hope we

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can have a success and confidence of the american public airplanes flying and we don't lose business air bus. the french have already made overtures with they are trying to do to make sure there are safer planes produced all over the world. but particular their thinking the france airbus that's an important industry. good luck, thank you. >> think you rank member cohen and i reckon it's a chairman for the full committee chairman sam greyser five minutes records thank you and rank member cohen for the hearing and thank you administrator whitaker for coming in. it's a pleasure to have you before the aviation committee. the nights it's aviation system has been a major focus of our committees work this congress. last year we overwhelmingly as has been the theme here so far today, overwhelmingly passed a competence of bipartisan aviation administration reauthorization that is going to dramatically improve american

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aviation and the faa. the bill as it has been pointed out that many improvements been held up in the senate for more than six months. the senate it appears the senate is poised to resume its markup of the bill in a few days and i look forward to seeing if it finally happens and i look forward to sitting down with her senate commerce committee counterparts and start reconciling the two bills. serious issues within the aviation system have played out time and time again on the nightly news in my opinion the consequences of having no long-term fa bill are exacerbating. now more than ever american aviation faa needs bold direction from congress and we cannot afford business as usual or half measures our bill will secure the growth and robust leadership the american people deserve an aerospace system more progress continues to move the fa reauthorization for the

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finish line we are looking or depending on your to pick up that slack. many of the provisions of the house passed bill are noncontroversial can be implemented by the fa without additional authority from congress and i would urge you and your staff to start laying the groundwork for an expeditious and efficient agency implementation of the provisions with congressional intent. in line with congressional intent. today is a great opportunity for members to highlight the aviation there aviation produce the matters to them and ensure their issues are heard. aunt understood and hopefully are addressed. we also want to hear your impressions of the agency are since you have taken over the agency centric confirmation what your priorities are ongoing obviously moving forward and finally we look forward to hearing an update on what the faa is doing regarding flight

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1282 accident and what you have learned so far. i don't to thank you administrator and your staff for your very effective communication so far relating to the incidents and your related findings that you have found so far. open communication i think is important. it's very important components in the committee having confidence in the actions taken by the faa and i hope this continues as the agency progresses with its oversight work and audits we all share the same goal of ensuring the safety of our aviation system and maintaining that gold standard that we all talk about. with that, thank you again for coming before the committee and with that i yield back the balance of my time too. >> piglets thank you mr. treatment ranking member esther larson for five minutes per. >> think your chair just one more administrator whitaker, thank you for joining us today. appreciate it very much we've

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got a lot to discuss. this hearing comes at a critical time. first we have to review the implementation of 2018 reauthorization which expired last september. secco it to continue to push for the passage of a competence of long-range 2023 faa reauthorization which passed the house last july and finally we must examine problems the recent exposed. safety has always been this committee's top priority the aviation system here in the u.s. is responsible for safely transporting hundreds of millions of passengers each year without fear of harm or injury. americans have to have the full confidence in her aviation system and that confidence must be justified this committee must ensure the fa has the resources and tools it needs to effectively conduct its investigations, its audit enforce of actions. as always be apt to remain vigilant to ensure something like this accident the

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likelihood of this accident happening is decreased substantially. i generate for 7:30 seven was a terrifying to everyone on board but thanks the call professional actions from the flight crew everyone landed safely. fully support is this committee does the fa's decisive response to the accident which included grounding the affected max nine fleet. a separate investigation into whether boeing delivered a noncompliant aircraft to its customer, an overarching audit of boeing max production line, suppliers and prohibition increasing by 137 max production rate until's quality control issues are resolved. unfortunates out the first time we've seen aircraft quality control issues in recent history. may of 21 then share deposit route to the department of the faa into boeing with concerns about no less than nine reports of quality control issues their production facilities for it since then there've been dozens

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reports of similar issues leading to emergency fixes and delays in production. the safety culture of any organization flows from the top and i urge the boeing leadership to take time come it now, to examine the culture. they it is currently instilled and to improve. including the recommendation for the boeing safety culture review. boeing has some of the most skilled hard-working proficient workers in the world. they depend on their leadership to instill the right policies so they can effectively do their jobs. the women and men deserve answers and the public deserves answers. i also forge a ntsb playwright report and the findings of the faa investigation. i will continue to work with the chairs of the committee on the ranking member. on the action say for the safety

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and or skies. moving onto reauthorization. the community continue its oversight of the max nine response we cannot forget her other responsibilities to pass it fa bill in july. we are waiting senate action. this creates framework for safer, and more innovative and accessible u.s. aviation system. aviation safety at numerous safety gaps were enumerated in recent safety review team report. the house bill addresses these issues including hiring of air traffic control the installation of service surveillance and technologies and the administrative whitaker and i look forward to hearing your takeaways from the safety review report with the fa's doing to implement the recommendations. we have to do more to ensure all passengers can travel safely and with dignity the house bill improves trading for airline personnel and contractors on assisting travelers with disabilities and mobility

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devices and directs dot to reduce damage to wheelchairs and mobility aid. mistreat or where quicker i want to hear the fa's work with dot and the airlines to do more for passengers with disabilities. we are a talented aviation workforce in this country the fa reit authorization bill triples fighting for the faa's aviation workforce develop programs to expand the talent pipeline to all americans. la porte here with fa can do more to recruit, train and retain the expertise that we need to leading globally. we also have to provide a clear printable framework for innovators to scale new entrants safely while ensuring the needs of local committees are addressed. our bill requires faa as an example to issue beyond visual line of sight requirements for drone operations and ensuring their safe integration into the skies and crating jobs rate administrator i want to hear more about the fa is doing the rulemaking in your work to integrate these technologies.

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the recent boeing 7379 max door plug accident is yet a reminder of what is at stake if we continue to delay addressing systemic safety issues in u.s. aviation ecosystem. that is in part why the senate needs to move the bill forward so we can certainly negotiate long term reauthorization to ensure the faa and ntsb have the authority's and resources that they need to do their important work. thank you very much i yield back. >> think you ranking member larsen recognized ranking member: for instructions for. >> think administrator whitaker you probably know these things but there's a lighting system in front of you. green get started, yellow get ready to end, wrap it up. read it is over. asking nose consent the witnesses. must be included in the record without objection so ordered. i also rescued him's consent tohis hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have a right answer certain questions and may be submitted in writing

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without objection so ordered. in the last to know him's consent the record for 15 days from additional comments in addition information about members of witnesses to be created in today's hearing without objection so ordered. three in a row. i yield your on projects that objection pickwick so ordered, thank you. drinking member larsen. again administrator would to welcome you come appreciate you being here today. written testimonies been included as part of the wreck of the subcommittee asked the limit the oral remarks to five minutes without administrator whitaker you are recognized. >> thank you chairman graves redgate members larson and cohen and members of the subcommittee thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the current and future priorities of the faa. our number one priority is safety. recent events especially generate fifth incident involving the boeing 737 max nine have shown us we cannot become complacent when it comes to maintaining safety and public

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confidence in the aviation system. since being sworn in as administrator i have focused on addressing potential risks to the safety of our national airspace particularly in three areas. significant safety events, air traffic controller hiring and continuous safety improvements. last year it was on uptick in significant safety events including a runway incursions and close calls around airports. in response faa tasked independent safety review team to look into these issues for they provided a report to me in november and we have already begun implementing many of those recommendations. to mitigate the risk of incursions we are pursuing a range of strategies and solutions including better data analytics, pilot control outreach improved airport signage, red and white and taxi weight redesign. we are also committed to continued development and

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deployment of technologies that enhance runway safety. we will continue to work this issue until we reach our goal of zero significant safety events. the safety at the u.s. aviation system is due in large part to the scale and dedicated air traffic controllers who work the system. to maintain her safety record the agency must accelerate the pace of recruiting, training and hiring to meet increasing traffic volume while also integrating safely new technologies and new entrants into our system. we are taking immediate steps to grow the controller workforce through several key initiatives. we are filling every seat at our air traffic controller academy in oklahoma city. we are expanding the use of advanced training and facilities across the country including upgrading simulators and 95 towers. just this last week we installed the first tower at austin airport in texas. we are working with aeronautical

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colleges to move graduates quickly to on-the-job training. we have initiate year-round hiring for experience controllers from the military or from private industry. during my first three months it is administered and met with controllers in boston, philadelphia, dallas, here at d.c. and the tower. in those conversations controller fatigue came up repeatedly as a top concern. because in large part by shifting schedules challenging overtime requirements. increasing our control will help mitigate risks associated with controller fatigue. additionally we have set up a panel of fatigue experts to review the latest science on sleep needs and how that can be applied to work requirements and scheduling. expect to receive the panel's report later this spring. the third priority is continuously improve our safety processes and procedures. for example our air traffic safety oversight department now

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reports directly to me. this gives me unfiltered candid feedback on the state and quality of the organization. we are also exploring how the agency can improve data, accessibility and collaborate with stakeholders to collect and analyze data across our aviation system. data is crucial to identifying and mitigating significant risks and emerging safety trends. to support these efforts are planned to hold the discussion tomorrow with senior leadership for major u.s. airlines on how we can share information more transparently and improve her safety management system. the need to be vigilant on safety came clearly into focus on january 5 with the incident involving alaska airlines flight 1282 and left it made cabin door plug blew out of a boeing 737 max nine shortly after departure. i want to commend the flight and cabin crews for their professionalism, and heroic actions to ensure the safety of

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everyone on board during that emergency. less than 24 hours falling the incident fa took decisive action to ground wondered seven max nine airplanes but we then approved a thorough inspection and maintenance process that was performed at each of a grounded aircraft prior to returning to service. we begun an audit of boeing's production quality control practices and we have informed boeing the faa will not grant any production expansion of the max until we are satisfied quality control issues uncovered during this process or result. going forward will have more boots on the ground closely scrutinizing and monitoring production and manufacturing activities. boeing employees are encouraged to use fa hotline to report any safety concerns. let me stress the safety of the flying public is our mission we will continue to inform our decision-making going forward. i am honored to lead the team of

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more than dedicated employees who work every day to meet our mission of the best and safest aviation system in the world. i am confident our agency's ability to address our current challenges and those that lie ahead. i also want to confirm as chairman graves alluded to to really commend the bipartisan effort in the house toward completing long-term faa reauthorization bill. i look forward to work with congress as it finalizes this a vital legislation. thank you for your continued support of faa and i look for to answer your questions. >> thank you administrator, it records myself for questions. 2020 congress passed the aircraft certification safety and accountability act. under sponsor design flaws that contributed to the crashers of two boeing 737 max aircraft. one of the provisions of the bill requires aircraft manufacturers to implement safety management systems. given what you have learned so

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far from the alaska airlines flight 1282 incidents and challenges bowing his head with quality controls the faa considering further action with sms requirements for aircraft parts suppliers or others involved in the aircraft manufacturing whether that be rulemaking, regulatory changes or requesting changes in the law? >> think you're chairman that's a great question. the sms process is the core technology for our system. boeing has been involuntarily voluntarilydeploying that syste. one thing we have learned in this particular set of circumstances with the alaska flight is we need to make sure they are talking to each other. make sure you get all the data we can from the system and have the tools analyze those. to your specific question their rule that is out there covers

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manufacturers it is not necessarily cover all the component part manufacturers but oem has the ability to impose those terms by contract we would expect part of their safety measure system they would insist on those types of controls particularly key suppliers like aerospace pre- >> thank you office of the committee is going to be working very close to an ntsb to make sure you get this right. administered and going to be really candid looking back at what's happened in the aftermath of the max incidences i cannot help but think the faa had a lot of trouble walking and chewing gum candidly. i think they really struggled with being able to carry out all of their duties and responsibilities and so i want to hurt ranking member larsen bring it up as well. be on a visual line of sight a vision rulemaking committee estimated final report fa nearly two years ago but i don't think

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it was perfect it's a pretty good roadmap on how to move forward can you give some projection for the aviation industry should be expecting in that regard? >> i think there has been a lot of interaction with stakeholders and i know from my roles before taking this position there has been some frustration on how quickly that might be moving. we do expect to have the mpr m out this year. it is that priority we will continue to push the forward. >> i cannot emphasize enough how important i think it is for the faa to be able to manage all of its various functions to maintain certain predictability these new entrants need into market but we are also continuing to advance our gold standard of safety in the united states last question pre- >> i agree with that. >> thank you. administrator there are provisions in the 2016 faa bill and 2018 faa bill that have not

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been fully implemented yet. here we are advancing and 900 page 23 or 24 faa authorization bill. the house and senate bills have a number of identical provisions. while it is very difficult to improve upon perfection the senate is trying to add some new things. i want to hear from you what is the faa doing to ensure they're going to hit the ground running and be able to comply with it implement this in bill in a manner that is as urgent as the law is in regards to addressing the number of the safety passenger experiences that we have salts of the legislation? >> what i can say is i can commit to when this bill passes we will work hard to work together to have work plans at all these various initiatives and communicate with you and our expectations as far as when we

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can meet those. i think we can do is mixture of good open communication about how we will execute on the provisions of that bill. >> administered in my 30 seconds here i am just going to say as much blood, sweat, tears as the folks appear the aviation team has gone through over the past two years and for the legislation together striving to reach bipartisan consensus and addressing many of the urgent issues in the aviation industry i am hopeful the faa will treat the implementation of the same urgency we have been putting the legislation together pre- >> we will and we appreciate that effort. >> thank you. recognize frank member: for five minutes pre- >> thank you sir. mr. administrator, what parts of the production oversight and quality assurance of the boeing airplanes are delegated by the faa to the manufacturer and how does the faa oversee boeing representatives when they're thg this delegated functions? >> there are a couple of answers

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to the question one is we have tasked to look at a technical level front where the delegations are and what our options are as with respect to the allegations quality control and quality assurance are a key function for a manufacturer. normally falls in the purview of that manufacturer that there's no reason to not have those function done by a third party so i think that is something we want to look at as well. at a macro level with manufacturing there has been an oversight approach that's focused heavily on audits. checking the paperwork to make sure it is correct to making sure the systems are in place. we are migrating to a system i would call on it plus. will have more of a surveillance component much like you would find on the flight line or the maintenance where inspectors are on the ground talking to people and looking at the work that's being done.

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with audit and inspection which while removing inspectors in. >> i presume we look at what's been done around the country around the world and get best practices in all these things? >> would like to think we are best practices for. >> i like to bit airbus clinic claims that pre- >> we do pay attention to what others are doing. i think in this case we know what we need to do next which is to have more on the ground presence to verify what is going on for. >> thank you sir. the committee passed into law the aircraft certification safety and accountability act which was a direct response to the max eight crashes can you provide an update to us on the faa's implementation of that has been particular the sections we highlighted in the letter we sent you last week? >> i can. the sections you specifically highlighted we have completed much of that work. you highlighted on zero two of sms that rule has been pushed

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out. when systems are being deployed. the cultured service section 103 is due within a month we are very much looking forward to getting that data around boeing safety culture. that will inform some of our adjustments to the risk model approach. we have updated the policy under 107. we have completed standing up you see and sc for compliance under 122 and 125 inc. oda best practices into our process provokes thank you syrup it i took two of my pet issues which are also important issues. that is evacuation of airplanes that requires 90 seconds and also seat size that say for safe to ingress and egress. we passed laws to say they had to do a study on seat size and evacuation.

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what they did on evacuation was embarrassingly poor. did not have a model of what aircraft looks like with the passengers did it nobody over 60 years of age nobody under seven or eight they claim those for liability purposes they also did not have any dogs on their or packages or people with disabilities et cetera, et cetera. there were 26000 comments in response to that seat act the faa requested public comments of 26000 comments. what can we expect to issue a final rule on the issue of seat dimensions? >> i am emily with the work that's gone on around that and its comments. i think it's important for us to make it distinction what might be economic regulation what the safety regulation.

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a lot focused on i want more legroom type of comment versus safety provisions. or taking those into account typically with evacuations the problems attendant to be piling up at the exits rather than getting out of the seats. we have trouble identifying issues around difficulty with seats. there piling up on the exits but all of that information has been considered we will certainly take your feedback a swelter provokes think of going to close out but a preacher giving serious consideration to getting this done seat size does have to do with getting out of the plane. if you are crowded and there you got somebody next to you who is physically challenged because of the girth and makes it difficult to get out i cannot imagine people in japan it was 18 minutes. if you work on 90 seconds work on the seat size work on a safety and comfort could be the same. i yield back.

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x thank you the chairman will differ. next i think the chairman, thank you administrator whitaker going to start off with a couple perfunctory questions would you agree airport improvement program 19 operations and maintenance requires a file you want to read this right out of the manual the airport facilities which are necessary to serve users of the airport other than facilities owned by or controlled by the united states shall be operated at all times of the safe and serviceable condition and in accordance with the minimum standards for maintenance and operation. it will not cause or permit any activity or actions thereon which would interfere with its use for airport purposes. do you agree with that? >> i'm not familiar with it but it sounds right. >> would you also agree faa airport compliance manual section 226 request for interim use of aeronautical property for other uses general requires the

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faa to approve the use of airport facilities for non- aeronautical purposes and affected explicitly states the faa approval shall not be granted if the faa determines the aeronautical demands as a likely to exist is in the period of interim use? >> i believe that's accurate that's my understated work that's right out of the manual i'll give it to if you want to see it. so these documents from the faa make it abundantly clear airports are restricted in their ability to use the facilities for non- aeronautical purposes and when they are doing that or when they are requesting so they must receive faa approval. restrictions are in place to protect the flying public and the safety pay but also to protect the investments of taxpayers have made with the federally funded airports. yet i will tell you i have seen a disturbing trend in cities choosing to use their airports such as chicago o'hare, midway,

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boston's logan's as facilities to house illegal foreign nationals brought here by the administrations i'm going to say failure to enforce immigration laws on the books. that clearly falls in my mind into the category of non- aeronautical use. now, my question to you is has the faa approved a request use airports to house illegal foreign nationals? >> to your explanation the faa does have a role pre- >> i know it does i'm just asking you are the administrator has the faa approved any request to house illegal for nationals? >> or i'm going to answer that if you will let me. it is my understanding progress just went use the time efficiently. >> so the faa does approve a requests for community use. whatever the category there's a huge number of categories for community use in our criteria is whether it interrupts aeronautical uses or is otherwise disruptive.

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>> so how many requests have been approved for housing illegal for nationals? >> my understanding is there's one airport that is made that request regrets the others that i mentioned. >> was the one who made the request any of the ones i mention? >> i believe it was either kennedy or o'hara cannot remember regrets could be o'hare. it would not beat midway logo and yet their housing illegal for nationals at the airport. did the faa make the required determination no aeronautical demand is likely to exist? this is an airport i am reading right from your regulation here chapter 22.6. did the faa make that determination? >> the determination was a did it didnot interfere with aeronal uses. >> so in that case i guess the faa won't enforce its grant assurances which it says right here will literally number one

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these assurances shall be complied with and performance of grant agreements for airport development, airport planning, compatibility programs grants for airport sponsors so the federal government is paying for it, they make the agreement, agreed to it and then don't follow it the faa is not going to do a thing about it. i want to yield some time to a friend but let me just ask this question how does walling off portions of the airport to house unvented for nationals which passengers in america have to walk beside? these are unvented illegal foreign nationals how does that promote safety or utility or efficiency in these airports? >> i think you're out of my area of expertise are not familiar with that regrets and answers a question going to yield some time to my good friend from texas. to my good friend from texas. mr. administrator i'm going to reference a letter dated february 5, 20242 maria cantwell and honorable ted cruz are you familiar with this letter on

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february 5 that you sent? >> i'm not sure the topic is. >> i'm going to make sure because i've just like i'm going to michigan a copy of this letter i have a lot of questions regarding this letter i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman yields back i recognize ranking member of the full committee mr. larson for five minutes. >> thank you thank you administrator for coming here today and helping us out for the first question having your testimony mention hotline that workers can call as well as a whistleblower hotline could shoot -- mike you have that phone number can you for the record state what it is can you remind folks where they can go in order to make that call? >> we have a link on our website faa.gov you can go fine access to that hotline. we have also set up specific hotline for boeing employees which we have had communicated out of the factory so they can reach us directly progresses out of fa.gov as well? >> yes it is.

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that include in spirit as well. >> we do have inspectors in spirit as well, yeah. >> and that's new. can you give us the range of the numbers of people that you've deployed into the boeing -- >> two dozen at boeing and maybe half a dozen at spirit. >> and can you give an indication whether that will be permanent or short term, as part of a permit solution? >> we are undertaking a

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six-week. >> make a determination on how many poll folks we need on the ground but i do anticipate we would want to keep people on the ground. we don't know how many yet but we do think the presence -- >> it's influence in your decision-making of oda authorities and how you wish to pull back from boeing? >> i think the -- i think the events of january 5th, it really created two issues for us. but two, what's going on with the production at boeing and issues in the past and don't seem to be getting resulted but we feel like we need to have a

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heightened level of oversight to get after that and triggered by the maximum. but nothing -- no permanent decision yet about removing some authority from the oda authorization at boeing. >> we've -- aye heard boeing ceo mention option for third party quality control so i think it's important that we look at all options on the table and how do we make changes that are going to make results that we have. >> i want to move to -- little bit more to the faa. we passed jokingly asked you ahead of time, i was going to ask but we really want to impress upon the senate and how important and try to get it down

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and how important it is to get a final bill done. is there anything in the bill, anything that you would have needed ahead of this or you would have ahead of january 5th or do you have everything that you need at least for this particular investigation? >> well, i will make two comments. we really appreciate the effort on the bill because it creates huge amount of disruption and aye only been there 3 months and probably had a dozen meetings on what happens if there's a shutdown, what happens if we don't have authorization so it creates uncertainty for us. i don't see anything in particular that it's possible i will come back in six months and tell you that we need something. i think we are going the need more boots on the ground. we don't have that many inspectors on the aircraft certification side of the house.

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so that will be an addition and we haven't scoped that the and we can do that in authorities as long as we can find the funds for it. so i did outline some of the issues in the 23 bill. >> we are going to recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you, chairman, administrator. i want to talk the about training and air traffic controllers and i want to go back to november. you announced that the faa would expand leggic training initiative also known as cti and those programs harness specifically underutilized capacities among programs that

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meet faa equivalent levels of safety and we know it's something that we need and help address that shortage of potentially 3,000 maybe more, maybe less air traffic control certified controllers and bring us up to speed on what the faa has done since november to implement a new enhanced cti program, what's being done. >> so we've done -- what we are trying to do is make sure that the schools are duplicating the curriculum that we teach at the academy and what physical tools and things of that nature to put together a very clear curriculum and the academic year 24-25. we are executing so that we start to see graduates from the

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schools to see faa to be controllers. the immediacy of the issue why we are pushing forward. of the couple dozen cti schools out there half of them able to start training students beginning in the fall. >> do you see new programs opening up as a result of your efforts? >> i would like to see that. it hasn't been our initial focus. we are working with schools that are already in the space but i don't see any reasons why other schools specifically with technical bent can't have this program as well. >> okay. >> that's the extent of my questioning, mr. chairman. i yield back the remainder of my time. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and to the administrator. thank you for being here for coming to speak today, your first hearing before this committee and americans are upset, they have a right to be

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upset. make no mistake this was a close call, too close, the incident along with reports of near misses of planes colliding as they depart and arrive at america's ports in the past year, unacceptable to all of us on this committee. we need to pass the comprehensive federal aviation reauthorization bill as currently sitting in the united states senate. it gives faa, this administrator the tools they need to enforce safety rules and prevent catastrophe. in this very committee we crafted a strong bipartisan 5-year faa bill and the house passed it nearly unanimously and now the senate needs to do theirs as quickly as possible. you are the head of aviation

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oversight and safety, i want to underscore what the ranking member has discussed here today in terms of oversight particularly on production facility inspections. a crucial part of making sure our planes are safe. section 521 calls for faa to update the risk model used to enforce frequency of the inspections and couple of sentences explain how the agency determine it is frequency and inspections on production. >> the agency uses a risk model with respect to manufacturers. survey to identify the level of risk and how many inspections will be driven by that. that model will likely evolve based on the role of sms systems which reduce risk and better insight on what is happening --

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also in the case of boeing culture survey that we expect to receive later this month. that is recent trend of mishandled or damaged wheelchairs by aviation passengers. the recent trend incidents by commercial airlines raises concerns of passengers with disabilities. how was faa work to go prevent the incidents and improve accessibility for air travel, people with disabilities. >> thank you, sir, the dot has a large role in this the how customers were treated on aircraft so we work closely in supporting dot to make sure accessibility is an option and innovations can happen to make sure that is --

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>> how would increasing deployment of technology affect air traffic controls? >> i think near-misses is there's ability to have tailored solutions for each airport. every airport has its own challenges. awareness technologies or tools in the tower can really make a difference and avoid mishaps. i want to thank you for faa, gateway airport is the biggest traffic control tower in the region. contributes $2 billion to the

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economy. $14.4 million in the infrastructure law funds. ribbon cutting will be held in a couple of weeks. cooperation between faa and arizona delegation and congress has been crucial to this growth and i look forward to a continued strong working partnership to implement innovative ways to increase capacity at gateway. with that, i thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. recognize the gentleman from -- afor five minutes. >> thank you, chairman grace. thank you, administrator. i want to follow up with colleague mr. perry's line of questioning. i know that your whole testimony was basically about safety and we all want safe airports. mr. perry read to you from the manual about how airport has to be approved by faa and you

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stated that one airport had approval to be used for the nonair nautical purpose for housing migrants. >> to my knowledge this is not an issue and i've only been there three months. >> it's my understanding that applications are only involved if it's behind security, so other properties on airports don't come through our office for approval. it's really just behind security properties. >> do you think they found a way around that? >> i assume they are in compliance, i have not heard otherwise. our role to make sure that our proper procedures are followed? >> this is an issue that i didn't think we would have to deal with in congress.

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aye chaired the committee on natural resources and we have a similar issue with national park service land for the administration has approved use of national park service land to build migrant shelters which this is kind of crazy that you would think that that would even be an issue but it has happened and in researching the the process, how that happens it appears that maybe secretary mayorkas had more to do than that than doi secretary. are you aware of any meetings between secretary mayorkas and secretary buttigieg, using airports to house migrants? >> i'm not aware of any no. >> are you aware of any meetings with other dot the or dhs officials to discuss this issue? >> i am not. have you been in any neatings ms

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regarding this? >> i have in the had meetings. resent a letter to chairman grace, chairman of the full committee, 60 some odd members found letter last november asking about this issue and as of today received no response. i know that you're new but why do you think we would be getting delayed response on this issue? >> i don't know but i'm happy to follow up after ward. >> you'll follow up with secretary buttigieg as well? >> i will follow up on the status of the letter as well and i will let you know. >> amazing that this is something that's been documented in the news and there seems to be no response from the administration and i know that you're new again and real knowledge of what's going on

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here for the rules associated with this, so, yeah, if you would follow up with secretary buttigieg and tell them we are waiting for his response and, mr. chairman, i yield back. mr. chairman, i yield my time. >> so you received, did you look at the letter that i referenced that was dated march fifth and sent to campwell and ted cruz? >> yes, i have that. >> all right, did you write that letter? >> did i write the letter? >> no, it was drafted for you. >> who drafted it for you? >> i don't know. it went through a process as the issue was developed internally they respond to requests for technical assistance from various issues. >> is this the official position of the faa to oppose the raising, mandatory retirement age without a study beforehand?

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>> the official position is that we don't have a position on the retirement age but if it changes we would like to have data to support the change. >> i want to be clear. everybody listening, the faa, the administrator does not have an official position on whether congress, we passed it in the house, should raise the mandatory retirement age of 6255 to 67. >> we have identified two, international compliance and one about understanding the data changing age from 65 to 67. >> any influence on the drafting of this letter yes or no? >> not that i'm aware of. >> gentleman yields back. >> thank you. thank you to chairman graves and ranking member cohen for this

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hearing today and thank you for chairman and ranking member larson for their leadership on passing common sense reauthorization of the federal aviation administration in the house last year. mr. whitaker thank you for the subcommittee. thank you for taking the time to be here. i would like you to the address an issue that's affecting the national space system which is aging infrastructure and functional and failure of the faa's system in 2023 highlights risks to the flying public when infrastructure isn't replaced in a timely way and sadly faa now operates and maintains one of the oldest collections of critical infrastructure in the world. one such system is in desperately need and landing system, there's map up there.

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i've got one here. this demonstrates how many systems are in operation. faa has more than 1200ils systems in the country. ils is the only system approved to support weather landings as such systems are required to remain in operation for the foreseeable future the vast majority of the safety critical systems were replaced in 1980's. faa told industry leaders and members of the committee that modernization was an eligible expense under the program. aviation chairman larsson and i

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subsequently engaged that this was, in fact, expense. august 17th, 2022 when mr. larson and i noted there was no money directed in the fiscal year spend plan for replacement. we asked for a timeline and budget detailings specific allocation, equipment for fiscal years 26 which you can see here. the response we received which is up now contains none of the information that we asked for. in follow-up conversations with faa we have yet to receive satisfactory response as to why acquisition has lagged. 14 of them are sitting in missouri simply waiting to be the installed. at the faa's current pace of

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modernization which is 4 to 5 systems per year it would take more than a hundred years to replace the systems. this means that faa expects the safety critical systems to be in operation despite being over a hundred year's old. i can't imagine that's actually the expectation. and just so we are clear, what system failure looks like, the most likely impact on these airports is on capacity, delays. when an ils is out, runways can't be use for weather operations but inherent safety risk should a system fail in the middle of landing operations. so mr. whitaker, what's the faa scheduled for deploying devices system wide. as you might be aware the specialist and i'm --

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>> you hit on an interesting issue. >> so my understanding is that that will be -- the funds will be used to begin deploying those systems. >> do you have a timeline? >> i can certainly respond with some specifics on the timeline. >> and i would -- i would very much like a specific given links of time that this has been going on, the bipartisan

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infrastructure bill gave us of five-year timeline and we are over two years in. i yield back. >> thank you. thank you, mr. davis. recognize the gentleman from minnesota. >> thanks for being with us and congratulations. >> thank you. >> mr. whitaker, how many positions are there at the faa? >> how many positions? we have 45,000 employees. >> 45 -- and what percentage of those positions are filled? >> i don't have an exact number for you. >> is covid emergency over? >> i believe so, yeah. may 11th, president biden declared emergency over. i understand ewe use a hybrid telework model is that correct? >> it depends on -- it depends on the function. obviously our

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controllers are on the job but other employees are still in a hybrid situation. >> how many days a week or how many days a week do employers have to show up in the two-week work period? >> it depends on the employee and the job description but the baseline is four days. >> they show up every day for their jobs. >> i understand. what if controllers show up for -- would that interrupt our work? >> well, they can't control traffic from home. would it be a problem across our country yes or no? >> of course. >> how do you track employee

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accessibility in this model? >> it's -- it's up to individual managers to manage their workforce to meet the needs of their mission? >> i can just tell you from what i'm hearing from stakeholders is that accessibility to faa staff is limited and it seems evident that productivity is winning. several high-profile rule makings are still ongoing and you know this, beyond visual line of site, operation of unmanned aircraft systems that final report was concluded in march of 2022 and now it's not expected until august of 2024. >> it depends on the job

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position. many employees not only controllers but inspectors need to be in place but others it may work for working remotely so i think it depends on the position. i believe faa should hold itself to higher standard and faa telework schedule requires again only in-person two days, correction 4 days out of two-week work period and i would like to point out again our controllers are working a lot of hours, a lot of pressure on them to keep our flying public safe and speaking of controllers, the national air space rather safety review team concluded that under plan submitted to congress when retirements and others accounted for hiring plan and today's understaff levels resulting in net increase, fewer than 200

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aircraft controllers by 2032. this is extremely concerning for safety and efficiency of the aviation system. can you reassure the committee that the faa will prioritize this issue, conduct maximum hiring of new controls and continue to request adequate resources from congress to address the problem? >> i can, yes, sir. >> it would take a lot longer for maximizing to return to healthy controller staffing levels? >> we certainly commit to max hiring until we get healthy. what we've done is we have -- there are competing staffing models at play so we have commissioned the the transportation research to review those models so within 3 years we will have a new model in place and i will set those goals. >> thank you, last question. will you prioritize and support

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general aviation like you do commercial and will you support rural airport investment infrastructure? >> absolutely. >> thank you, again, congratulations. >> thanks. >> recognize the gentleman, mr. garcia. >> boeing withdrew request for the max 7 to receive a safety exemption which would have allowed the aircraft to be certified with a known defect and aircraft have antiice system issue that could cause the pods surrounding the engine to break and fall off in certain conditions. this could have potentially catastrophic consequences. boeing is now working on a long-term fix that the require retro fitting the entire max

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fleet. how did the faa in your understanding failed to protect such a defect during the certification of the max 8 and max 9 aircraft? >> my understanding on that particular issue is that that potential defect was discovered during -- using computer modeling some years after the original certification of the aircraft. and modeling that was required by the acts of legislation actually. but that's my understanding on how that was discovered. >> while i appreciate the faa's attention to this topic boeing has demonstrated time and time again that it will cut corners and safety in order to maximize profits. my second question administrator is this, in response to the recent alaskan airline accident faa has launched investigation into boeing's compliance with

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manufacturing requirements, has faa comprehensibly engaged with employee groups, those involved in the production and have they, those who have filed whistleblower reports regarding procedures in the manufacturing system and if so how is the faa handling these reports? >> so on the engagement aspect we now have 20 inspectors on the ground in boeing engaging with the employees in every phase of the manufacturing process and so this is to allow us to have direct conversations with employees about what pressures they might be feeling or what introductions they are getting and what incentives they are dealing with. on the whistleblower we dedicated a portal for boeing employees and we also have a portal for whistleblowers and we

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have a regimented process on how we deal with those reports to make sure that identity is protected and that -- and the reports are taken seriously. >> should i take that to mean that there is currently engagement with those employees? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> airport workers are paid livable wages, airport workers are largely latino, black and immigrant workforce. they've been overlooked. administrator, are you committed to doing what you can to ensure that the airports, that the faa oversees our delivering fair wages and benefits to all

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employees? >> i'm very committed to making sure that they have a safe working environment, safety is my mandate and we are focused on safety at airports particularly on a ramp so we have taken initiatives around that to make sure that those employees are in a safe environment? >> thank you. and i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you, mr. garcia. i recognize the gentleman from new jersey. >> thank you, chairman. welcome mr. whitaker. i was going to speak on something else and i am in a moment. but using airports for housing undocumented, that's a big deal, big deal to the communities and the airports they are in and a big deal fiscally, it's a big deal for safety and i know that you're new, we need you to drill down and tell us more what is going on, please check on this issue. i think it's inappropriate use, safety is our number one issue.

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of course, we got a hold of it. atlanta city international airport, my district, we were talking about housing up to 60,000 illegals in the community of 35,000, 40,000 people. that's wrong. so i need some commitments from you to drill down from this issue, know how many airports are involved. complete list of airports that are involved, a policy coming from the faa we need a policy from the faa dealing with these requests and ensuring that the faa is part of the process in determining if, where and when this is going to be done and we need a complete list? i brought by secretary buttigieg, we have the

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information. i need you to do that. i appreciate if you can give that the information back to me and the committee. >> i can commit to make sure that we are complying with the law around any approval. >> mr. whitaker -- >> i don't own the airports. >> very important part of what happens at the airport. you should be included. you should be part of it. the people quite frankly of our districts should be part of it as well. so i ask you to please think about that and i would ask you to please commit to doing that. it's in the a big request. it's a real obvious things and i look forward to that report. i know that you're aware of it. 180 people on board. we are blessed that nobody died, that there were no injuries and

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this accident in my opinion, in my opinion is the result of decades-long process of globalization and in early 2000's boeing outsourced business model, the strategy peaked in 2005 with the sale of the wichita spirit system. i know that you're aware of that. spirit is now, a quote, global corporation and it has been identified by the faa as responsible. you all identified it as responsible for the faulty components behind the alaskan airlines incident. it's a cool thing to be and no

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doubt gone up 400% and product has gone down but the stock has gone up which is really interesting. you should be worried about safety when you're selling private equity funds but they were not. this is a one, two punch of globalization and social engineering, it doesn't belong. job number 1 is safety, job number 1 is safety for every man, woman and child that goes into the airports and it's a company that is struggling to reliably produce safe aircraft. mr. whitaker, are you concerned by the trajectory of boeing as an american institution, are you concerned? >> my concern is that the boeing makes safer -- i'm more concerned about the quality of the aircraft coming up. >> they have a job to worry about safety efficiency and when you're worried about all these other issues and not the green

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economy and everything else, that should be job number one. i hope you have a plan to put them back on track. i would like to submit this record for the record. national air space systems, electrical utilities and technology transfer program. my time has run out. i wish i had a half hour with you. i appreciate you being there. i would hope that you would take my request seriously with the american public and i thank you and wish you good luck. >> i recognize the gentleman lady from alaska. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, administrator whitaker. general aviation rates in alaska continue to outpace the rest of the country. can you provide an update on faa recommendations of 2023 faa

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alaskan, observing system installation schedule to have been completed in september of 2023? >> thank you, ma'am. so i -- i am fully supportive of role of general aviation and had a chance to visit when i was deputy and got to some of the remote facilities and i think the program has really been a very strong program and we support that and will continue to support that. on the the awas, i got briefed on a hearing and i understand that 7 of the 8 have been deployed. it's inaccessible due to flooding or other conditions and we will make sure that that continues as well. >> okay. excellent. and as you say alaska is unique. 82% of the communities are not accessible by any other way except airplane.

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the faa passed -- or the house passed the faa reauthorization bill and it included section 510 and this provision includes a number of initiatives to further objective and i'm wondering if what you see as steps that are necessary to achieve this kind of reduction. >> that is how we brought the commercial aviation accident rate down to its current level and getting the stakeholder groups working together. i think with ga there are a lot of technologies that can be deployed to create better situational awareness in the cockpit and more tools particularly around whether

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unpredictable weather and and redundancies. >> thank you so much. i yield my time. >> thank you a thank you for being here today. >> there's a strong relationship between the kansas economy and aviation. there are 91,000 jobs attribute to the aviation industry in my state including 42,000 from the aerospace manufacturing segment. aviation ranks second in economic impact in kansas only to agriculture. for our aviation industry to thrive faa needs a road map of updated priorities to adopt long

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overdue policies changes and regulatory requirements. delays in rule making and insufficiencies in the workforce are bottlenecking the industry. it's imperative that congress passes reauthorization bill so faa is workforce and address backlog of concerns that my colleagues and i have been raising for months so america can get to gold standard, status and aviation. a few questions, mr. whitaker. we heard about faa rule-making process and the importance of it for innovation, safety and international leadership. what will you do under your tenure to make this process more timely transparent and accountable. >> thank you, sir. transparency in general needs to be improved and efficiency needs to be improved delivering services, registrations, for example, certification process, so we are working on those issues. rule making is a little different because it's driven by

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the procedures act and i think the best we can do is make sure that we get that transparency and know where we are in the process and try to keep the process moving. rule make can go have a dozen different steps and making sure that we continue to keep sunlight on that and keep things moving as quickly as we can within the confines of that law. >> can you specifically address in other words, you house the faa adapting regulatory framework to accommodate the rapid evolution of unmanned air systems. we have to acknowledge that this is is here the stay. it's a growing part of the aviation industry tremendous potential for kansas and the rest of the country and how do we make sure the faa is appropriately and quickly reviewing the new technologies with safety front and center but also not having unnecessary

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delays as well. >> it is one of the big challenges. it's mostly been dealt in a one-off manner. recently we got much better on small uas and through the exemption process so we have been able to satisfy a lot of the loss operations and such. advanced air mobility currently would have to operate under existing rules which, you know, doable but not scalable, if you will. i think what we need to do is work as an industry with all stakeholders to develop that road map that integrates all of these technologies and try to keep up with the pace of development, so i think we don't want to be in the way but we need to make sure that they are being deployed safely and that's our top priority? >> i agree. >> i hear from multiple manufacturers in kansas that talk the about how long it takes for faa to respond on new ideas and how do we do things better, how do we innovate and make sure that the u.s. continues to -- that we are the world leader in

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the aviation space, big part of that, of course, is manufacturing, big part of that is having faa that's adaptable, understands technology, understands where the industry is heading and how do we partner together to promote safety. last question, in your system you outlined several initiatives on increasing the air traffic controller workforce, what strategies are you implementing to bolster other fields such as aircraft mechanics, pilots, other segments of the industry? >> that's a great question. i'm remiss for not mention that we are requiring the sectors, controllers are the most immediate safety need for us but we are hiring all sectors and we are competing with all those other industries you just mentioned in a market that is a pretty good market if you're an employee. so i often said i'm the chief recruiting officer for the

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agency so we are doing direct outreach in schools. we want to make it easier for folks to come through and have an experience there and maybe go do something else afterwards. it is a priority and not an easy one to get after. >> thank you, mr. chairman. with that the i yield back. >> thank you. >> general lady from nevada. >> thank you in, mr. chairman. nice to to see you, mr. whitaker. congratulations on having this position, tough job on tough place but i know that you're up to it and we appreciate it very much. aviation is so important to my district las vegas. we have a very crowded air space with the military, with the drones, with the commercial flies, with general aviation, so this is really critical. now i want to thank y'all for recent investment from the bipartisan infrastructure law. you brought 49 million for the

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infrastructure grant funding for all the airports in my district and that's really helpful and really appreciate it for improving runway safety and taxi upgrades. i would like to go back to the issue of air traffic controllers. we know that air travel is increasing and yet the number of air traffic controllers is not, i think you hired 30 last year including trainees and they're often forced to work overtime 6 days a week and leads to stress and burnouts and would you just say again for the record how you're trying to the address that issue?

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and we are working, i think, one of our promising outlets will be the air nautical university where is the students can get exact same curriculum as the academy and then go directly and pass examine and go directly to tower or radar facility. so going forward that would allow us to increase the pipeline but in the short term it's going to be hard because it takes so long it's going to be hard to move the needle very much at least till you get about

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two years out. >> i think there's a place in some of the community colleges for developing programs like this. >> i think that -- that can certainly be eligible if they're able to teach that curriculum and have the training tools. it often requires being around a lot of retired controllers, i would like to see the program expand as we look forward. >> me too. if we can be helpful, let us know. also we are seeing more and more transportation that companies are acting in ways that tend to prioritize profits over safety. and you mentioned in your testimony that the agency found inspections of the ground in 737 9 max shoeing quality system issues, quote, unacceptable and required further scrutiny.

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you have confidence in your suppliers that they can kind of maintain the quality control, it's not fox guarding the hen house kind of situation? we are we are going to look at the process top to bottom to see where the incentives are, the failures are in the systemment we are going to demand that the quality come up to the appropriate schedule. they have to be built for those specifications. regardless of their other motives, they are not going to be able to build more airports until they meet the standards. >> we are looking at that specifically. we asked research firm to give us options on delegation and where we might bring in a third party, for example, in quality control or quality assurance to make sure you have a neutral set of eyes on issues so that is

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something that we are looking at. >> throw out there about the framework beyond line of sight now on waiver system, we won't put rules in place, are you moving forward with that? >> we are going the move as quickly as we can on that one. >> okay, a lot of people want you to more quickly. >> i've been getting that message. >> thank you, i yield back. >> thank you, ms. titus. >> we have olympics possibly and ports and important to have the conduit. the faa has identified multiple time blocks with dc airport currently under your eyes.

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so our focus on with respect to dca is whether it's safe. so we are not involved in the decision around where the freights from dca, so our focus is entirely on the safety aspect. it is an airport that is very close to capacity. there are some hours when there's some room for new capacity but it is as you know a pretty full operations and operates 60 operations a minute, an hour, sorry. so basically one a minute so you can't really squeeze much more than that in there. so that tends to be where our focus is. >> according to reports from faa it is air blocks which can be effectively done safely according to faa. >> well, we will always make sure it's operating safely. if something suffers it'll be efficient. >> okay. >> outside there's ten thes of millions of americans that deserve bettering, better value.

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provide consumer free market to our nation's capitol. we would appreciate that. my hometown airport salt lake city, phase two of a three-part 5 billion-dollar development, can you explain the impact of delayed faa reauthorization to salt lake city international and airports like that are going through modernization? >> yes, i think you're hitting on a very important point. these projects have a certain momentum and they need to be funded and they need to operate under current authorization so i think it's vital that most both of those pieces happen. >> i apologize, mr. administrator. these wonderful gentleman give me their time when they have nothing to say and i have so much to talk about. i asked you if you write the letter and you said you didn't ask you but you had someone ask you to write the letter. can i ask you who asked you to

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write the letter dated february 5th? >> so i think the discussion probably would have been with our government affairs team that focuses on providing technical assistance on legislation. >> but you couldn't specifically -- somebody come up to you, mr. administrator i'm drafting this letter, i want you to approve the letter so we can send to senators campbell and cruz? >> no, we put out correspondence and the last four weeks i've been busy on other topics. >> government affairs team within the faa? >> presumably but i don't know precisely that normally it would be how it would be -- >> fair enough. fair enough. you stated that it is not the official position of the faa to the oppose raising the retirement age to 67 but you have some concerns and in the letter it talks about we always

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prioritize a robust process to identify risk and ensure mitigation to maintain safety but we do not test in a live environment, we do not test in a live environment. could you tell us what that means, the members -- what the hell is a live environment, can you explain that to me? >> i believe what that means is we don't change the rule to see how it plays out. we do the research before we change the rule. >> okay. would you consider -- are you familiar with basic med? basic med the study? the basic med study? >> i am. >> the faa authorized it. 2017, 2019 and they reported back to congress. it's right here. as required on march tenth reviewed 3 years of general aviation data and concluded that the basic med program is safe.

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isn't that a lie study? the general aviators are flying around and looking at whether it's a third-class medical versus basic med and they found out how basic med works. that's a live study. would you agree? >> yeah, that was based on a legislative mandate. >> yeah, i know it's a legislative mandate. that is a live study. reporting back 3 years and they are saying, hey, there's no issues of basic med. >> recognize mr. carvajal for questions. >> thank you, mr. chair. did the faa find any evidence of

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persistent quality control access in any of boeing's production lines. >> recognizing to answer that question, a lot of that is before my tenure but i think the production problems with the 787 beginning in 2019 through -- through recently are pretty well known and even just in december we had an air worthiness directive and so i think there were already some -- some recent reports of production issues with boeing. >> not to hammer on that but you did mention some boat issues recently. has the faa become aware of any other lapses since the start of the investigation? >> so the investigation is ongoing and -- and we are supporting ntsb in their investigation, of course, of the incident itself, so there's no

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-- there are no findings really to discuss at this point. the audit investigation is going on and the only thing i can say about that it hasn't shown any findings have led us to immediate action and we will take the data and analyze how to move forward. >> thank you. mr. whitaker, what are the faa's most successful industry partnerships is the contract tower program? 262 smaller airports participate in the critically important air traffic safety including 21 in california, one is san luis obispo and regional service and supports dod life training operations and military readiness as a pilot flight all across the country.

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it's also important to note that contract towers account for approximately one-third of all programs operationally, controllers are veterans. mr. administrator what assurances can you give me and my colleagues that contract towers will remain a priority for you? >> well, i can assure you that we certainly support the program and given the -- the hiring challenges we are having with air traffic controllers, no incentive to try to tinker with the system as it's working and, in fact, we -- we also do hiring from contract towers as well, so it's a source for our own controllers, so we are fully supportive of the program and want to make sure it's working particularly in smaller airports. >> also staffing shortages continue to be a challenge throughout the industry which you just now touched on including contract towers.

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what measures can the faa and the industry undertake collaboratively to address staffing challenges at these towers? >> i think -- i think we are doing all that we can do from -- from our -- that we have been able to think of for our own hiring purposes but i think it's become a very competitive market. there are a lot of new entrance and we have to compete with those employees and give them a good working environment. >> thank you, i appreciate your leadership. i appreciate you recently becoming the administrator and i think you have your hands full with a lot of challenges and i just wanted to recognize you for all that you bring to the table to this very important position and all the problem-solving that you will help us achieve. thank you very much, mr. chair, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. carvajal. >> thank you, chairman.

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nice to meet you, sir. >> nice to meet you. >> i represent oregon fifth congressional district and i'm grateful to be on this committee to ask these questions so i will get started. .. .. the federal direct in subsidized stafford loans and eligible borrowing $11,000. increases in the maximum amount-

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$500 and increases the direct stafford loans to a total of $65,000. the regulated training, with that help improve the pilot shortage

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it is not lost on me that it happened in oregon, my home state. we choose alaska airlines as a preferred airline. i fly on them every single week back and forth. they have cause for concern and many questions. can you speak to the level of confidence in the improved for the 739 max door plug. >> i think that was a very thorough inspection process. the mechanical fix to that defect takes care of the problem >> you fly on the 737 max. >> yes, i would. >> talking my last question, i have one of those in my district i appreciate you answering that you are in full support of continuing that. i will yield my time to my colleague for the remaining time >> thank you very much.

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you did not write, but you had the team rights. i don't think that you proofread this thing very clearly. there are some issues here as you relate. i believe the safety study is a prime example and i have a few more. it is interesting, taking through some pilots in canada over the age of 65. over the age of 65. they want to squash this. west jet is flying representative pilots over the age of 65 right now. that is your life study. let's talk about the part 135 operators. the age of 55 under part 135. a live environment. could you explain to everyone

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what a part 35 is versus a 121. >> part 35 carries an area typically under 30 passengers. >> sure. >> does part 121 a part 35 shared the same airspace? >> they do. >> they taxi with that. the big airliners delta united everything, you can get this net yet, taylor swift flying to the super bowl in her supersonic jet they could be in the same airspace taxing on the same runway. flying around the millionaires and billionaires across the country. united and delta, that, gentlemen, we fire that. >> congress passed a law limiting them to 65. >> how do you feel about that?

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>> i think that it is what congress did so we do not second-guess congress. >> i think that that is perfect. >> i yield back. >> thank you, sheriff. for the record, i am not sure taylor's swift fly supersonic. gentlemen from massachusetts. the senate to the faa. this community did good work. mr. whitaker, you are talking about the vibrant housing at the airports, by statute, faa has jurisdiction over airside not land operations. >> there is one instance of the airside asking migrants, correct >> that is my understanding.

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there has been no documentation of it being impeded at that one airport jfk. correct? >> that is a standard, yes. >> the faa and aeronautical organization? >> our mission is safety. >> the hard-working men and women on border patrol. they have endorsed the bipartisan security which is a tough and fair compromise to address the surge. if my republican colleagues are so concerned i suggest they stop asking you, sir, for answers and start asking meagher johnson for answers. are you donald trump's campaign manager or are you speaker of the house. >> sir, back to your job. you authorized a max airplane to fly again after the ask -- alaska airlines accident.

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>> it was grounded because of concerns about quality manufacturing for the plug door. the focus of that was to inspect those aircraft to come up with the repair that would ensure that the standard of safety built into the aircraft. once that inspection and repair scenario was agreed upon, the aircraft was agreed to return to surface. >> in 2020, you took back to getting from boeing. was that oversight sufficient given the problems regarding the max nine? >> i was not there at the time. it is hard to call that oversight sufficient. what additional steps need to be taken the logan international

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airport. reducing the risk of runway incursions. can you speak to how investments like that will improve passenger safety and any other work they are doing or near misses. >> issues that happen in the airport environment and on runways, each airport is unique. it has its own geometry and certain geometries create natural situations that can cause confusion. we call them hotspots. trying to identify those hotspots and correct them through signage, lighting or sometimes moving taxiways is highly effective in keeping them safe. the good news is they are a really straight solution. >> i want to join my colleagues and saying how happy we are to have you in this position. looking forward to seeing the work that you can do for

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maintaining and improving america's gold standard reputation for airline safety. >> i yield back, mr. chair. >> thank you. i recognize the vice chair of the subcommittee. the gentleman from indiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. >> a robust open and transparent bipartisan process the house passed the reauthorization last july and an overwhelming 351-69 vote. it appears we are finally going to see some welcome movement from our colleagues in the senate later on this week. hopefully it means certainty and stability to your agency. to the flying public with an faa reauthorization centered around our gold standard of safety and continued american aviation leadership. that leadership that i would like to speak about in this particular case or the lack

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thereof. as we host hearings in the lead up to our reauthorization bill we heard from our witnesses especially in the drone delivery industry who said they were expanding in markets like australia. instead of the united states due to a lack of regulatory certainty. i have been encouraged to see the faa issuing a number of waivers. enabling the on-site operations for drone delivery companies. the waivers represent another step in a long journey that must strike that fine balance between safety and forward momentum. but it is a journey that in my estimation has been moving far too slow. mr. whitaker, earlier you told my colleague that the notice of proposed rulemaking would be published this year. last september, and faa official had pegged that timeline as august of 2024. is that timeline slipping or as august still the goal? >> i can give you a specific

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answer. i was covering for my lack of memory on a specific date. >> i would like an exact answer, if you don't mind. >> furthermore, the timeline from august for the administrator telling back in september is a timeline from august is slipping. i would like to have you circle back and articulate why that timeline is slipping. my other question is, once that notice is published, publishing a final rule for the proposed rulemaking. >> moving as quickly as possible

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it was a review process, as you know. we will give is as much transparency as possible and try to keep it moving. it is an important rule and we want to get it out. >> due to so many delays and timelines we have companies reevaluating the innovation, r&d in the united states. >> thank you to the commitments for moving forward he had i would like to yield the balance of my time to my colleagues. >> we have talked about this. we have talked about the fact that i don't believe that was proofread. i really don't. you seem to be a great guy. i think you have a bright future full of inaccuracies. and says we don't have to have a live environment but i don't believe you believe that.

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the last sentence of the letter says "it is critical to provide the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigations. everybody watched. australia. our friends to the north of canada. the age of 67. no facing the issue. the head of the faa in new zealand, the faa said they have pilots. call them. ask them. ivan got, believe it or not, the former president of the pilots association in the past commercial airline pilots i did not want to stop working at age

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60 took jobs of international airlines or charter operators for which the retirement was later. president "you can look globally , look at canada and look at pilots flying in corporate aviation and on-demand services. referring to a large private aviation. it could expand and ask the airlines themselves. that is the avenue they could investigate if they choose to expand their luck." i yield. >> thank you, sheriff. i recognize the gentleman from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you. an incredibly important topic at an important time. i know that we are all united in wanting to restore confidence in our air travel. when we have some americans, i travel quite a bit, as we all do , they are filtering out there travel plans.

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the planes that they think are unsafe. when we have that, we know that we have to respond. we have to respond together. our responsibility is to help you to ensure that we remain the gold standard. you have my commitment on that. i wanted to ask you in reference to boeing's internal oversight, you say that it is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and reassess any safety risks. can you discuss how they intend to change oversight at the manufacturing to meet this goal. >> we are doing a number of things. we are doing an audit of the manufacturing process. we are looking into what is delegated. what could be overseen by a third party and we have inspectors on the ground talking to employees understand the ground true. based on that outcome putting

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together a program to continue to add for an auditing approach. much more hands on approach. a six week period finish. >> do you need any further authorizations or support from the congress to do that? the faa reauthorization that would assist in that. >> i do appreciate you saying the willingness to work together a problem like this, we all need to be growing in the same direction. the faa. i think we all want the same outcome. a different skill set. we may need to find the money to

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do it. i think it will be a top priority. dealing with it a few years back your own regulator or your own internal reviews. independent investigators. the manufacturing themselves to be their own watchdogs.

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>> we have to make some changes to that. they let us be our own referees. certainly something we should work on. i want to cover really quickly the announcement you just issued the simulators, they are way of

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simple technology. a circle of screens. that particular airport. that environment. it works for new controllers. some other persistent problem that we identified the train for that problem. the situation that they respond and a learning tool. through the training process. >> thank you very much. >> think you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. whitaker. the faa, at least in my estimation the need of leadership.

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i move that to go to law. they witness to many alarming witnesses. i appreciate you participating in the briefing last week regarding the door plug incident and look forward to the ntsb report and faa's reaction and response. the maintenance and safety improvement act which ensures parity of safety protocols between domestic and foreign aircraft maintenance who you are familiar with. i am very happy to say this provision has been included in the reauthorization and i am hopeful that it will remain a part of final law. in particular both treatment of aircraft employees and passenger

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experience, supporting mental health and breaking down barriers as a top priority of many of hours. that is why he urged faa to modernize the protocols and take immediate steps to dismantle carriers from seeking care. you reference the faa mental health aviation mental class aviation rulemaking committee. i certainly, as do others urge swift release to the report. i asked, sir, for your commitment here today and supporting making mental health and the treatment, and particular aircraft employees top of order. >> i think it is long overdue to update the approach to mental health and treat these as health issues and have a clear path to treatment and get people back in the cockpit as early as possible >> we certainly acknowledge arise of mental health concerns

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across america. made even more dangerous in confined environments. certainly, men and women that are flying and participating keeping us safe in that arena deserve adequate care. i shall look forward to the progress and urge swift action. another question that i just wanted to touch on as it relates to advanced air mobility, a topic we all have focused on pretty acutely, can you provide us the timing on the powered list as far as you know the faa committed to completing it in 2024. i am certainly interested in hearing your insights and stage of development. >> that rule is under development. we do expect a final rule by the end of the year. >> i want to reinforce and support of your efforts. in response to a common question to my colleague from

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massachusetts, the faa when it desires to has a great deal of influence at airports, having managed one i know that firsthand. certainly when there needs to be faa clarity, i encourage it. with that, mr. chairman, i yield my time. >> it is critical to provide the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigations. we talk about the research. thank you for being here. japan, new zealand, australia, canada, do you think that it would be a good idea to maybe reach out to those countries and ask them, hey, how's it working for you. any issues with this? do you think that that would be may be a good idea to help accomplish what you asked for in this letter to conduct research and determine mitigations. >> if the legislation has passed , we will look at that option. >> it is all there for you.

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i talk a little bit about the 135. part 135 operators that are flying to millionaires and billionaires. a lot of people cannot fly that in this room here. flying around the millionaires and billionaires and those pilots can be 67 years old. the faa is okay with that. correct? they can fly. sixty-seven years old. fly the millionaires and billionaires in the same airspace. he is not being truthful. they fly in the same airspace. he would agree with that? >> i would agree they fly in the same airspace. yes, they do. >> how do we allow them to do that but not delta united and american to do it will be no we have a pilot shortage? >> we don't set these age limits , congress does. >> i know. we are going to fix it. we are going to fix it today.

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>> thank you. the patient gentle lady from california, we recognize. >> thank you, chairman. appreciate that. thank you for being here. last week we learned again about spirit aerospace and they incorrectly drilled holes in the fuselage. i am wondering if you know at this point in time, has faa determined how many aircraft were delivered to customers with these problems and what actions are being taken to address this newest problem with boeing and its supplier. >> so, we are working with boeing to understand what happened here. we are investigating that piece of it. these are small rivets that pulled a window in place. likely, what that means is, we

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know it is not too compliance. we want to understand why it has not been manufactured or designed. the then we will see what corrective actions need to be taken to repair the windows and when that will happen. >> incorrectly drilled in the lodge, drilling holes that were too close to the edge. >> those were around the window holding. >> okay. very good. very good. okay. so, the house faa reauthorization bill would create a new deputy administrator for safety and operations to engage in the certification and operational approval of lifesaving technologies. can you share your thoughts on how to elegy will improve aviation safety and how you would use the new deputy administrator role to further advanced technologies.

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>> i think that technology has been one of the great tools that we've had to reduce the accident rate and aviation. i think there is a lot of benefit in expanding what is available, particularly the aircraft to provide more situational awareness in the cockpit. i think that the focus needs to be looking at ways to bring the technology to market as quickly as possible. recognizing the impact that it has on safety. i can see that role to facilitate that action. >> the deputy administrator would be really responsible for trying to really prioritize this within the organization. >> i think we always want to prioritize safety, but it would be an additional resource to have quicker implementation. >> great. thank you for that. >> the faa and the professional aviation safety specialist have

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been in collective bargaining for over two years now. what is the status of that? >> the vast majority of terms have been agreed. there have been these types of things, a handful still outstanding. we are working as quickly as possible to get a final resolution. >> i understand that following the january 24 faa approval of the max nine inspection plan with alaska and united began to return aircraft to service. do you know how many remain to be inspected and how many heard from these airlines what their total estimated losses have been since their grounding? >> financial impact of this. dealing directly with boeing. as far as the number of aircraft returning to service, 90% so far most of them have been returned to service. >> i yield back.

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>> i thought about it but i thought that i would pass. i recognize the gentleman from new jersey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to think administrator whitaker for being here today. it is a critical aspect of aviation. many runway instances and near misses have been rubbed boarded over the past year and you outlined in your testimony actions at the faa has taken to address these risks. what are some of the challenges that you still face in addressing such safety risks. >> we do not have a lot of direct barriers. we have passed runway safety teams to virtually every major airport in the country to review the geometry of the airport and

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assess what tech analogies may be helpful whether it is as simple as lighting source signs or a more complex surface awareness. those surface awareness technology in the tower that is the most helpful, i think that that is the long whole. >> how are they addressing workforce challenges? particularly in terms of the expertise necessary for certifying new technologies such as unmanned aircraft systems and advancing air mobility technology? >> the new technologies do present on the certification side. there are a lot of new systems. a lot of new capabilities new to aviation. bringing the right workforce to work those issues is an ongoing challenge. we are competing with all of these companies developing those tech allergies. we are working to make sure that we have those resources in play. >> what is the faa doing to

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ensure that the agency dreading to fully implement the faa reauthorization legislation which the senate has yet to act on. are you doing anything to anticipate the reauthorization in house? >> are you talking about the new legislation? >> that legislation is complete we have a process that we will run to identify the projects for us come out of that. set up a sort of trying to meet the deadlines. if the deadlines are not achievable, communicating that as quickly as possible. i think the key will be open communication with the committee >> there has to be broad agreement. as you can see this administration must be able to see. the senate is looking. you can anticipate what is coming in a number of areas. i would anticipate, if i may,

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you can anticipate some of these efforts. >> i would yield the remainder of my time. >> thank you, sir. >> you talked about establishing an independent safety review team for the boeing situation. is that correct? >> an independent safety review team established last year before i came in response to near misses and they put out a report in november. >> i am all about safety. i know you are. everyone in america. our reputation is rocksolid. we are safe. we have done a good job in this country. could you consider asking a group like that to go review some of the records from japan, new zealand, canada to look at it? get the records. ask them, tell us a little bit about your history over here and

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your programs and having these pilots at 67 flying around. how is it working out? don't you think that would be useful information. the administrators, specifically >> if that legislation does raise the age we will certainly look at all the tools available. >> i think that that is fantastic. >> are you aware of any issues related to 135? does your office receive phone calls about potential issues related to the 135 operators flying right now while we are having this conversation. >> you get all the data. are you a receptacle to the data safety regulation as it relates to the 135? >> we would certainly look at that data. >> are you aware of any issues with these pilots flying around in the same airspace as delta and state 67 with the 135?

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>> i have not looked at the data to see if there are any issues around that. >> i yield back. thank you. >> thank you, sheriff. taking a moment of personal privilege here. i have had enough of this. we are going to go ahead and fire him. [laughter] seriously, to my right is chris who has served in the military. got a masters in aviation and new interest in the market. has a law degree and has been an incredible asset to this committee as we have gone through and built this near-perfect aviation bill. i think that this will be the last subcommittee action this week and i just want to take a minute. he will be taking off at the beginning of next year and i just want to thank him for his dedicated service working in a bipartisan manner with the

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entire aviation team. it has been a tremendous asset to the committee and i really do appreciate his service. [applause] >> i did want to fire him before he was able to resign. chris, thank you very much. good luck. with that, i recognize the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to add my thanks to your staff. i am too old to yield any time to you so you will not get any of my time. mr. administrator, you have a long illustrious career and i agree with many of your comments usc in this industry, both the manufacturers and the companies. clearly the world has changed. you mentioned this in your opening statements.

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near misses. the manufacturing problems. it is runway incursions. all of those things to me said bright red warning signs. what i hear from you so far as you accept that. we cannot rest on our laurels. i am afraid in many of these hearings prior to you getting your position, my senses the faa was resting on its previous track record. quite frankly, your organization reminds me of nasa just before the challenger disaster. the observation by the commission that institutional deviation, but with you it is written large into the culture. the safety culture of these companies. the perfect storm to me is a long wonderful relationship between the department of defense, military and aviation both contractually and supplying the workforce.

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changing at the same time that we have issues around climate change. we are coming out of covid. airbus and boeing, they had great profits after consolidation and now boeing is losing money. airbus is close to losing money. similarly, in your conversations with the air carriers, commercial air carriers, enormous pressure. vesting in airlines. he said i have an 800 number a call at three in the morning. please talk me out of it. but he still did it. the safety culture. versus the risk assessment. in the faa reauthorization. one of the parts that we put in there in the case of alaska, the root cause can go back and find out who actually worked on that plane, what hours they worked on i am told airbus has that information. those simple things from the safety culture at large.

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i would like your response. talk to the ceos who are under enormous pressure coming out of covid. the ridership going up. to avoid losses in an investment market that can move very quickly away from them that would create greater damage. on top of that, you have boeing that will not be able to supply the product that they are contractually already into and have serious financial disadvantages to lay that too long. it is a long question about safety culture. how do you maintain a safety culture or return to that safety culture that we used to have. we are one disaster away from the industry imploding. >> thank you for the question. i think you hit on some really true points.

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i have been reemphasizing since i've been at the agency that we cannot rest on our morals. we have to be ever vigilant to look at risks in the system. that is been the focus for the last three months. culture and safety is really important. it is one of the things that we will be looking out with boeing. we have a safety culture review that was commissioned as part of the reform legislation. it will be complete later this month. at the end of the day, the goal is to make safe airplanes. if you do not have that safety culture i think it's hard to make safe airplanes. we will be very focused on the quality process. and, really, looking at wherever the data takes us as we do this on a. we have to get back to a culture where safety is first. i don't care what his second, but safety has to be first. >> on an operational side.

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near misses, same things. talking to pilots that really express, air traffic controllers pushing a lot of product from the operators. >> in my realm, controllers was one of the first orders of business. working overtime. they have been doing so for years. that is not a sustainable view in my deal. hiring and looking at fatigue as a risk that needs to be mitigated as our approach their. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. i now recognize myself for five minutes. i want to thank you for being here today. i know i was touched upon by a couple of my colleagues already. i have some further questions. ninety-two days ago you were copied on a letter that was sent to the transportation secretary by members not only of this committee and other committees, but by the chairman of the subcommittee, chairman of the

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full committee and 68 other full committees of the house. they asked very straightforward questions about the biden administration's plan to house illegal immigrants and migrants at faa site and airports. some of our largest transportation hubs in this nation. including one that is just blocks away from my district at jfk airport. we requested a response by november 20, 2023. today is february 6, 2024 and we have not gotten any response. so i would like to submit the letter, for the record again signed by 68 other members of the house. sent 92 days ago. since we have not heard back, i would like to pose the questions from the letter to you right now how many and which airports regulated by the faa currently host temporary or permanent shelters for illegal immigrants or other persons?

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>> i don't have any information about that. >> okay. >> probably not mentioned in the letter, i know it was not mentioned by my colleagues, i took a visit to jfk airport just days after the site was apparently approved. i coordinated with mayor adams office. i coordinated with the port authority. tsa. i spent a career in the nypd as detectives. one of the most startling things that i found when i got to jfk airport was not the fact that the faa or the city of new york actually had me go all the way to jfk airport just to tell me that the meeting was canceled and they were not going to allow me to tour the facility, but the biggest concern that i have is there a zero communication amongst agencies at that airport nobody knows he was in there, nobody knows what is going on. it is a transportation hub probably one of the largest in the country and we have people

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just wandering the streets coming out of this facility. i'm not sure how anyone thought this was a good idea. have they granted any request from an airport or local state or federal agency between january 2021 and today to temporarily use a facility for purposes of hosting a migrant shelter? >> i do not have direct information. i am happy to respond with a response after that. proposing to house migrants at airports. >> i do not have any direct information on it. >> what has been the faa's response? >> again. no direct information on this. >> if the faa could provide a detailed description of any analysis or assessment of the plan or any other instance of airport migrant housing that has

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been conducted by the faa in accordance with the faa safety risk management policy. the decision to approve housing of migrants poses a serious security threat. represents failure of the biden administration's disastrous border policies. does the faa have a plan in place to ensure that any of these sites, even the ones that perhaps you do not know about yet will no longer be used to house migrants. >> i don't have any information about that. >> so we have, you are the administrator of the faa and you don't have any information on any faa locations that have house migrants or could potentially house migrants. >> to my knowledge there are no locations at house migrants. >> to your knowledge are there any that were approved house minors. >> i mean, i don't consider an airport in faa location.

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>> does faa have to approve in order for them to become migrant shelters? >> we approve community use agreements, yes. >> at no point did the faa think that perhaps it was a bad idea to house migrants in these locations? >> i don't have any information on what they were thinking before i got there. >> okay. when did you take as administrator? >> end of october. >> on november 6, 2023 is when the letter was sent. it is now february 6, 2024, and we still have not received a response. will you commit today in front of this committee that in one month you will respond to the questions that were asked in this letter. >> one month from today i will, yes. >> by march 6 of 2024, we will have an answer to all of the questions. >> yes. >> thank you very much.

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i now recognize from new jersey mr. menendez. >> thank you, chairman. did anyone focus on the constant helicopter noise we face, densely populated urban area? i have heard from constant constituents from helicopters flying for low periods of time and disrupting enjoyment of public spaces such as our urban oasis of liberty state park. concerned that helicopters have been using new flight paths without input or notice from residents. how does the faa monitor and enforce helicopter altitudes and decibel limits in areas like new jersey's eight congressional district in liberty state park. >> we do not have direct authority over noise per se, but what we do have is operating rules for helicopters. operating certain altitudes as they traverse land but beyond that, they fly routes according to what is available in the

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airspace. >> the monitoring component, how do you monitor their altitude? >> they monitor their own altitude. we would get reports if there were altitude deviations i could come from a variety of sources. there are certain minimum altitudes to be operated at. >> understood. what can the faa due to burn some helicopter noise? >> so, i think, the most effective tool that we have found is community meetings sponsored by government entity, usually an airport that are open and inclusive. including not only the immediate affected areas, but also areas surrounding that. an ability to have a community dialogue around solution. >> a great segue. i wrote you about the impact helicopter noise has on the district. my office has received a growing level of complaints to discuss

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the issue of potential solutions during a public meeting with your representative from the faa i want to invite you to our district to experiences issue firsthand and work together by attending this public meeting by the board of commissioners. >> we would be happy to have a representative participate provided it is a government-sponsored meeting and one that includes a very broad community. i think it is useful to include zoning officials and some of this is also zoning related. outside our domain as well, sir. >> absolutely. building a broad coalition of folks. a representative that is able to attend. switching gears, i am glad the faa is taking serious steps to deal with this against flight crews. i commend the agency's efforts in taking on the issue. i am still concerned that this is all against landslide employees not receiving the same level of response.

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working directly with customers experiencing delays, cancellations or other complications with their travel. the reauthorization bill passed the faa with prevention and response plans. those plans have yet to be put into place and i've tried to fix this problem through the act. i am pleased that the house passed version includes pieces of this bill the work is far from over. do you know why these plans have not been implemented yet? >> i am not familiar with that specific plan. not only flight crew, but in the airport. it becomes a little bit more complicated. you do not have the clear authorities in the captive environment and it is unclear, for example, what tsa involvement might be, what the local police might be, the airport involvement, it becomes murkier in the airport environment. this issue has been raised to me and i've had some discussions

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with airport directors about that. it is an issue of concern. >> that is what part of our legislation was to address. covering both the aaron landslide. wanted to make sure we work with all partners. some of these travel challenges lead to upset passengers and they have unfortunate impacts. i look forward to working with you on this issue and i appreciate your testimony here today. >> we felt will follow up on that issue. >> thank you. >> i've heard from several aircraft manufacturers that the certification process that the faa has become even more long and arduous than normal in a post covid air. some of this they attribute to people not returning to work in the office yet after covid. there are a lot of new employees who do not have as much

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familiarity as senior employees did you left. what are you doing or what do you plan to do to improve the certification process so that u.s. companies can be competitive and improve safety and efficiency for our pilots and passengers? >> it is a very important issue. we have a number of things we are looking at doing. creating more transparency in the process. why it is not moving. sometimes it is because we are still waiting for data sometimes we have the data we are not moving fast enough. i think that there has been a little bit of overcorrection followings the max events. a little bit more of a conservative approach. i think, you know, having clear leadership and clear profit is clear decisions for an important part of that. we are looking at ways to do that. it is an important issue we are working on. >> another area, i have heard

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from people that may need to be addressed. i may not be articulating this exactly correctly, but a pilot explained to me that when pilots have to leave for health reasons and then that health reason is overcome and then they try to get back into the system, there is not enough people or that process is also being delayed and has a long lead time. i think that that is particularly problematic given that chronic shortage of pilots. is he correct in that in is there anything you can do about that? >> he is correct about that. i too flight instructors that went through that at both complained to me about how long it took. it is not unrelated to the mental health market that we stood up. just trying to make the system clearer and be able to get to decisions more quickly. it is something we are looking at as well. >> in that line of questioning with pilot shortages, you know,

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training is a big issue and getting pilots through that process. it just came to my attention that the g.i. bill, it is a great program for veterans. it covers a lot of things. it does not cover some of the things that you need to become a pilot. i would think using a g.i. bill to get those hours that you need to, you know, to become a certified pilot, may be more important than basket weaving, a degree in basket weaving which the g.i. bill will cover. would you be supportive of having more flexibility in the g.i. bill so that we can use that money that these veterans have earned in service to their country in order to become pilots? >> i absolutely would. i would favor that to any other educational endeavor to get a status. it is expensive to become a pilot. it takes a long time. i would fully support that.

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>> we used to see these notices at the airport and say you need to have a real id to fly, certain day. that date kept getting pushed back. now i don't see the signs at all are we going to have to have a real id that has at the new and improved drivers license, if you will, in order to fly anytime soon? >> that would typically be regulated by tsa. i am not familiar with that issue. >> okay. i think that it is a concern. a lot of bureaucracy implemented in order to do that. i know that, maybe not a lot, but vaccine mandates. air traffic controllers. they had that same issue. what are you doing to make it easier for them to come back to work? >> it is not an issue that i brought across. i'll look into it. happy to respond.

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>> you are aware that some pilots did up to leave because the covid vaccine -- covid vaccine mandate. >> it is not an issue i have become familiar with but i would be happy to look at it. >> i appreciate you agreeing to look into that. looking into this chronic shortage. it is affect issues that you have to deal with. i appreciate your time today. good luck finding all the inefficiencies. i am sure you will find all of them and you will have perfect solutions to everything. thank you for addressing the certification process. i think that that is really important. we want to make sure u.s. companies are competitive. increasing awareness and safety for pilots and passengers. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. massey. >> thank you. i want to thank our chairman and ranking member for hosting this hearing and thank you, so must

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each, mr. whitaker, for taking the time to be here. not only as a member of this committee but as a mother frequent flyer myself now because of this, this is a deeply personal issue. when i fly with my kids are back home to my kids, the safety and security of their travel is essential. you have a mighty task in this new role. we know that you are up to it and thank you for your patience in handling all of the questions today. i have two questions for you. one is general for all air travelers in another specific to my district. we talked a little bit in this hearing today about the differences and approval delegations. we, on this committee, may understand the differences between design and manufacturing approval delegations, but for the american people, they do not necessarily know that. they know that hundreds of people died in 2018 and 2019

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because of the boeing 737 maxis. they know that now there are terrifying experiences happening to travelers on, essentially, those same planes. what are we doing to not only assure safety, but it sure that people can feel safe in this, after this investigation process maybe more specifically, what are you specifically tasking to examine in terms of reclaiming certain approval authorities and if you can, give some examples of that. >> what has been delegated and what our options are for reeling in that delegation and what areas are being undertaken by the manufacturer that could be done by a third party, for example. a question of looking at having a neutral third party overseeing parts of this process. we will see what they come up

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with. you are right, there is confusion between the design delegation which is really where a lot of delegation happens in manufacturing where there is less delegation, but there are functions that look like oversight, like quality control, that do not seem to be properly executed. the audit is designed to have us really understand what are the impacted areas, why is it not working and what are our tools for fixing it. bringing in a third party to oversee it or somehow change other incentives or their process. >> thank you. again, for the sake of the passengers, for the sake of the industry which we all rely on, we implore you to make it clear in these studies what is been done and what has been undertaken to ensure safety for the american people going forward. my second question is a little bit more district specific. grand rapids is home to the international airport. it is one of the busiest 75

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airports and the entire country. one of the first airports to return to pre-pandemic levels. we had record travel numbers in 2023. close to 4 million travelers. up to 6% of a previous record in 2019. it has the oldest airport power of all of the top 75 busiest, currently, there are no standards for how and when we replace these airport towers. i hope to change that through my bill which was included in the faa reauthorization which we are hoping the senate will act on any day now. but, the important thing is, you do not need to wait for them to act. the faa owns his tower in the community cannot replace it until the faa says so. can you speak to the importance of infrastructure in terms of ensuring safety around the country.

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>> i can. infrastructure is a huge challenge. we have a lot of it at faa. a lot of it is really beyond its useful life. including, for example, all the high-altitude centers. they are pushing 60 at this point. .... .... >> i guess i kind of wanted to start out but i had the opportunity last year to go to the atlanta airport. i'm out of georgia and visited

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the tower, the airport down to just one more facility that we want to visit up there and very impressive. i know that you've got your work cut out for you and in like so many agencies and so many hearings that i attend, i think one of the main things that i get over and over again is how we have lack of modernization and antiquated. i don't care if it's hardware or software. it seems like the federal government doesn't do anything to stay up to date or improve their technology. so last year with nodem going down and from my perspective it looked like the department of transportation spent time

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changing the name. where are we at on nodem and what other specific systems you may have updated? >> so, i think one of the challenges that we have is as we modernize there are legacy systems that are hard to take out of place. even systems before we were born are still used. sometimes the military rely on the system and folks have been flying a long time and we end up supporting a huge amount of and equated systems and that impedes our ability to modernize. there's been a lot of modernization over the past 10, 15 years, what you would have seen in traycon, new platforms for new technologies to make the system more efficient. but there are over a thousand systems that make up the air space. some of them are pretty old and

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i think what -- what we saw with the nodem we need to have redundancies in place. we are very focused on resiliency of the system and part of what i will be doing going forward is starting to have conversations about what the next phase of modernization, the next gen phase is over and we need to talk about how technologies advance mobilities and drones are coming into the system and how they are going to operate in the future. >> one the other policies that i'm focused on this committee is high speed, high-altitude travel and civil aviation, as a matter of fact, and as a matter of fact we got put into the faa reauthorization amendment that states the faa needs to come up with a study on how to certify new hypersonic engines and if you note, if you look at faa, the european counterpart, isa,

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they already have issued a road map for high altitude for hypersonic and supersonic aircraft. can tell us what if anything faa is doing the prepare similar guidance for american air space and further can you tell me what else the agency can do to make sure the american companies continue the lead in this innovative field? >> i don't have a specific answer on the high altitude air space but it will be part at what we look at when we look at air space of the future and we will look at what their jurisdictions are doing so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. i think we need comprehensive road map that integrates new technologies and gives us a way to bring them on as quickly as possible while keeping the same level of safety that we all want. >> my time is almost up but i just wanted to make a last-quick comment. when i was at tracon, they were about 40% down on air traffic controllers. we used a lot of veterans and

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they are great people to put in those positions because they are very organized and very dedicated and i will just caution you, it seems like we've made a move to get away from hiring people on qualifications and hiring them on classifications or -- >> i can assure you that we hire everybody on qualifications. that's one area that we are trying to open the pipeline on. >> thank you, thank you mr. chairman, and i yield back. >> i recognize ms. norton for five minutes.

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mr. whitaker, as cochair of the quiet skies caucus and the member who represents the district of colombia which is plagued by aviation noise, i have been fighting to reduce aviation noise in dc and across the country. while the safety of the aviation system is faa's priority, the faa needs to do much more to combat airplane and helicopter noise which will harm the health quality of life and the structural integrity of homes. last year i got two provisions including in the house passed faa reauthorization bill to combat noise in dc. would of the provisions faa within 180 days to create and implement a helicopter noise

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sharing mechanism for all helicopter operatest in the capital region and to make the data collected accessible to the public online. the data, this data would help us develop additional solutions to address helicopter noise. my other provision would direct the government accountability office to conduct a study of reducing helicopter noise in dc almost all of which is generated by government helicopters. this study would be required to consider the extent which military operators consider operating over unpopulated areas outside of dc for training missions. the extent to which vehicles or aircraft other than a helicopters could be used for emergency and low and law

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enforcement response and the extent to which helicopter operators have assessed and addressed the noise impact of various factors of helicopter operating helicopters including altitude, the number of flights, flight paths, day of freights, types of aircraft, operating procedures and pilot training. mr. whitaker, what if any steps is the faa taking to reduce airplane and helicopter noise over populated areas like the district of colombia. >> what i can say is in the past several years they've made some improvement in that area. they've -- they've hired specific folks who are focused on community engagement and in situations where air space is being redesigned or where there

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are persistent noise issues, they'll engage with organizations to have community meetings and understand views of citizens and see if there are actually real-time changes that can happen in the air space to try to mitigate. >> we haven't heard it yet. it hasn't been felt here yet. >> i don't know the specifics of dc. we are on a fairly tight footprint and approach pads are limited air space so there probably aren't a lot of options for dca. so that maybe in this case. >> all right. thank you, i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. i recognize mr. now for five minutes. >> i'm the last one in line here but for hopefully we can finish this and i thank you so much for your time. obviously this is very, very important to the industry.

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it really is. this legislation obviously has passed this house, passed it overwhelmingly and now it's sitting there over in the senate. i think we beat the dead horse on part 35. everybody knows, faa knows that we have pilots flying around that are 67 year's old in the private aircraft with everybody else and we fire them at the age of 65 and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. i find the ladder of a bill for over a year on a matter which you were asked specifically in hearings. you had hearing before the appropriation committee and you answered about executing the legislation of congress and i think we agree with that. this is congress' decision to implement path. all right.

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so now it seems like this letter which i believe is full of flaws and i think we pointed those out, it seems to have some opposition to raising the age if you read the letter and read between the lines it appear that is the faa that you serve are against the agency, and that's not true, you are not opposing it. >> my intent was not to oppose it. my intent to identify the issues that we identified during technical assistance which is around international compliance. >> yes, sir, i think we've addressed all of those issues. when we raised the age of 65. all of the issues got worked out. the gray on gray. now we don't have the gray on gray. looking at your background and form of pilot i think you're 62 year's old, right? i think you have a five-year

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term. five years, before you finish your term do you not believe that we should give you a test to make sure that you are there and you have the cognitive? we do it for the pilots? we do it. they get their ekg's and physicals, why should we do it for you? >> so i think with respect to regulating airmen and the safety, medical certification is there to protect -- >> i agree. you agree we have the safest aviation record in the past ten years, things are going very, very well knowing that we passed legislation that allowed, we haven't had any issues. you have any issues with part 135 right now, any concerns with the safety record? >> as i said earlier, i have not looked at the data. >> i will help you. there is no problem there.

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there's no problem. you heard the wheels up, you know who that is? delta private version. i wonder how he delta ceo would feel. this guy right here, been in delta for 30 years, former air force plane pilot. he's 63 and a half. america, we are going to fire this guy in 18 months. it's the an arbitrary number. we just came up with it. it's 65. we go through all the testing but we are going the fire this man because of that age. but yet, sir, you are out there touting a project to recruit retired experience military air traffic controllers but existing fully qualified and not yet retired pilot is somehow unsatisfactory. nobody in this hearing, my friend, i think mrs. massi brought it up once talked about retirement age today. nobody brought it up because it

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passed this committee, it passed the house of representatives overwhelmingly and now it's over in the senate. now he's trying to get you to confuse the other members in the senate with this letter making it sound like this isn't safe. all the data is there. the environment testing is there. you can reach out to japan and all the other countries. you know we have pilots filing at 67, it's all there. all the data is there and alpha -- 2500 alpa union paying members filed a lawsuit for a breach, a breach of duty for fair representation, shame on him, let's get this done and i think, sir, it is incumbent upon you to get some clarification as it relates to this letter before the senate meets on thursday. would you be willing to do that

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for me? lack at this letter? >> i'm sorry, i would be -- >> be willing to look at this letter and look at this and try to say, hey, listen, there are problems with this letter, it's not true? >> i think aye clarified the intent of the letter. >> very good, i appreciate that. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields. are there any further questions from members of the committee who have not been recognized? >> seeing none, that concludes our hearing for today, i would like to thank the witness for his testimony, the committee stands adjourn.

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tv FAA Administrator Testifies on Aviation Safety Policy CSPAN March 5, 2024 8:02pm-11:04pm EST

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tv FAA Administrator Testifies on Aviation Safety Policy CSPAN March 5, 2024 8:02pm-11:04pm EST

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FAA Administrator Testifies on Aviation Safety & Policy
CSPAN March 5, 2024 8:02pm-11:04pm EST