Arrogance, Thy Name is Ignorance
The title: ‘Arrogance, Thy Name is Ignorance,’ is a play on the words “Frailty, thy name is woman,” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, hastily married her brother-in-law, Claudius who, unbeknownst to her, killed her husband, Hamlet’s father. Her quick remarriage stirred Hamlet’s rebuke of his mom, that running to Claudius would soon prove foolish, impulsive, dangerous … even fatal. The title is employed as a metaphor for aviation events ignored by the headlines, but are just as foolish, just as dangerous – not now, but in the not-too-distant future when they’ll come to fruition.
On July 30, 2016, near Lockhart, Texas, a sight-seeing balloon struck powerlines killing the pilot and 15 passengers. In accident report AAR-17/03, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found the balloon pilot was not required to hold a medical certificate, despite the fact the pilot couldn’t safely operate the balloon because he had an uncorrectable medical condition.
The NTSB blamed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for Title 14 code of federal regulations (CFR) Part 61 Certification: Pilots, Flight Crew Instructors, and Ground Instructors, Section §61.23’s removal of the balloon pilot’s medical requirement. However, years before, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), an aviation lobbying group, successfully petitioned to have §61.23 Medical Certificates: Requirement and Duration rewritten to omit the balloonist’s medical certificate requirement. The EAA didn’t consider consequences. Even though the EAA’s efforts may have increased membership, they compromised aviation safety for … what? More balloonists per capita? Consider, were the 16 people who lost their lives – including the balloon pilot – worth the outcome?
The EAA didn’t bypass, backdoor, or do-an-end-run-around rulemaking (RMG) processes under Title 14 CFR §11.15 Petition for Exemption. RMG processes were used correctly; everything was on the up-and-up. But the EAA’s lobbying success came from aviation industry (AVIN) indifference, a lack of concern (attention?) with Part 61. Why? Because people who should’ve cared … didn’t. That means, all of us. One could almost hear the indifferent shrugging of shoulders. Most baffling of all was many EAA members were/are pilots. No medical?! What were they thinking? As a result, the event cheapened pilot integrity. After all, if pilots don’t require medical clearances, how is passenger safety assured?
The RMG process is designed for everyone, every aviation-related entity, in the AVIN. Each time a Title 14 section – not a Part, a Section – is changed, it costs five million dollars and takes five years (5-by-5) to do. Why? Because each change directly affects aviation safety for everyone. That’s not exaggeration – it’s a Fact. The RMG process is designed to be slow for very good reasons: CFRs are Safety Regulations.
NOTE: Important – as we work through this article, Aviation Safety is the reason for the CFRs.
The FAA is not a law enforcement organization; their sole purpose is aviation safety – period – in all AVIN areas. The FAA’s authority’s limited to enforcements, fines, and certificate revocations, which can be found in FAA Order 2150.3C FAA Compliance and Enforcement Program. Oddly, agencies like the NTSB don’t understand this fact. The NTSB regularly calls for immediate CFR changes but they won’t learn the RMG process. Consequently, people think the NTSB knows what it’s talking about.
The 5-by-5 procedures provide all CHs the chance to be heard; the time and money are well spent. FAA Legal gets involved; they’re there to protect the FAA’s and Industry’s safety interests. Budgeting determines the new rule’s impact on Industry’s costs. There are meetings, between regulators, specialists, industry, airports, certificate holders, numerous affected agencies from wildlife to ecological groups. Comments and feedback take time. In some cases, great efforts are made to include everyone affected. For instance, if a Part 121 section is rewritten, all those affected, such as thousands of Parts 145, 135, 91, 65 certificate holders have a say in the change. The FAA needs five years to assist in the RMG change(s) to plan for critical oversight changes; impacts to CHs’ safety cultures and quality control programs; to verify if FAA inspector numbers need to be adjusted and where. The five years are necessary for all to participate due to unseen hurdles in an evolving AVIN.
Case in point, between 2010 and 2020, Part 145 Repair Stations was rewritten at the same time Part 107 Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems was being developed. Repair stations and contract maintenance rules had come under scrutiny following several major accidents, such as ValuJet 592 and Air Midwest 5481. There was urgency to a Part 145 rewrite for both domestic and international repair stations. Parts 121, 135 and other CHs took part in the RMG changes. The Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) was pivotal as representative of repair stations’ interests. As the RMG process unfolded and the rules were changed, each participant played a critical part.
Part 107, with its 67 sections at 5-by-5 each, was written from scratch. Each section was commented on by Parts 65, 91, 121, 145 and others because of national airspace concerns, maintenance, and piloting issues. Airports, small non-aviation businesses, utility companies and many municipalities participated. The FAA had to increase technology to meet oversight hurdles. The RMG process was followed by all participants to secure aviation safety. It was a Herculean effort in a brand-new industry.
In the RMG process the FAA is never the problem – Congress is. For years politicians abused the FAA, using the agency as a political football to be spiked at partisan victories, or as a political prisoner to all Congressional budget tug-of-wars. FAA management may be incompetent, but every FAA Flight Standards (FS) inspector is an agent of aviation safety, in many cases juggling numerous CHs by themselves. Their dedication to Industry and traveler safety is second to none and no … other … agency understands aviation’s many components better than the FAA’s Flight Standards. No one!
Title 14 CFR Part 147 - when student safety mattered
Every CFR the FAA FS division oversees is important, otherwise the FAA wouldn’t be involved in their safety … even Part 147 Aviation Maintenance Technician Schools (AMTS). While AMTSs are important in providing technicians to Parts 65, 121, 135, 145, etc. their function is strictly to provide AVIN with safety-minded airframe and powerplant (A&P) technicians – period. AMTSs can’t dictate AVIN safety; they lack the experience and knowledge. Like all instruction-based entities, they prepare. Analogy: driving instructors provide students with safety training, like learning traffic rules. Driving instructors don’t take students on the interstate, they prepare them for the interstate.
The new, yet not improved, Title 14 CFR Part 147
Recently, the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC) blundered onto the national scene, undermining the RMG procedures by getting the Part 147 rules changed. The FAA were coordinating AMTS curriculum updates; they issued a Supplemental Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) to work towards modernizing some – not all – AMTS instruction curriculum. However, AMTS curriculum was already instructing safety; a rewrite was not safety critical. The AVIN urgency focused resources on the Parts 145 and 107 rewrites because of the two CFRs critical impacts on AVIN aviation safety.
ATEC (at atec-amt.org) wrote, “Tired of the wait and wary of the inflexibilities a new rule would introduce given previous FAA proposals, the council [ATEC] engaged its elected leaders to ensure the final rule provides the flexibility industry needs to train the next generation of aviation technicians.” ATEC decided its curriculum concerns outweighed the AVIN’s safety concerns. Curiously, ATEC took inappropriate action so AVIN could be … flexible? ATEC alone acted impetuously, supposedly in Industry’s best interests(?), even though ATEC never understood the AVIN’s needs.
I’ve dealt with many CHs in my career; real aviation troubles predate the strange events taking place today. Certificate holders would never defer to an organization like ATEC to fix aviation’s problems. ATEC and AMTS administrators don’t work in the AVIN. So, by ignoring the AVIN CHs’ inputs into Part 147 safety changes, ATEC wasn’t looking out for Industry’s best interests – just their own.
In September 2017, ATEC lawyers ignored RMG procedures so Part 147s would reflect ATEC’s own standards. ATEC’s manipulation was legal, just not ethical. ATEC compromised AMTS students’ and facilities safety; ATEC corrupted the quality of A&P technicians entering the AVIN for decades to come. Arrogance, thy name is ignorance. ATEC lawyers used backdoor legislation by having incompetent Congressmen approve unsafe changes via the Promoting Aviation Regulations for Technical Training 147 Act. Congress then forced the FAA and the AVIN to adopt the ATEC Part 147 rules.
ATEC was tired of waiting for more important safety-based regulations
What AVIN ‘experience and knowledge’ did ATEC employ? In its arrogance, ATEC dismissed the AVIN RMG processes. Why? Because ATEC was “tired of the wait”. ATEC decided changes for Parts 145 and 107 took too long. By jumping the line, ATEC demonstrated they don’t follow the rules.
I helped test the FAA’s internal training revisions for ATEC’s new Part 147 rules; I’ve been doing course rewrites for 20 years. My observation: How ATEC corrupted Part 147 is nothing short of radical; changes were conceived in ignorance by those who don’t know Part 147’s intent.
The AVIN must understand what happened here – this is important! We, as an Aviation Industry, will now lose control of our up-and-coming A&Ps. What ATEC did was intentional; it was arrogant in its pursuit. ATEC undermined decades of safety-minded procedure to give the Department of Education (DOE) control of AMTSs. ATEC focused on what regulations ATEC could change for self-promotion, while dismissing whether they should have changed the regulations. ATEC intentionally disregarded any consequences of dismissing the AVIN RMG processes. Like what?
1. ATEC took curriculum decisions away from the FAA, the only agency who understands the AVIN by tapping into every CH, domestic and international. Instead, curriculum will soon be decided by accredited schools who may or may not have aviation-qualified administration making the decisions on what A&P students learn. Even with FAA responsible for certificate holders’ training curriculum, accidents happened. Now, ATEC alone is culpable.
2. ATEC cheapened the A&P trade by turning AMTSs into production lines that can increase A&P certifications. Increased numbers will flood the market making A&P technicians a non-specialty skill. These new A&Ps will make less money than a grocery store shelf stocker, have less benefits, and will have no job security. Air operators and repair stations will rake in the profits from hiring the new flood of bargain labor.
3. For repair stations and air operators, the new A&Ps will be less qualified because Safety, Skills, and Knowledge Fundamentals are now compromised. Students will be allowed to virtually: rig flight controls, install engines, weld, and other safety-intensive skills by computer screen. Once this Pandora’s Box is opened, the AMTS will virtually instruct on anything they can.
4. Consider what happens to smaller AMTSs that can’t meet ATEC’s new standards. Will they be absorbed by accredited schools? Will they be put out of business? Will ATEC’s new unvetted CFR Part 147 sections close AMTSs and put qualified instructors who can’t move, out of work? What about Designated Maintenance Examiners – DMEs – where do they rise or fall with ATEC’s changes? How will accredited schools monitor their quality?
5. ATEC has betrayed the intent of the trade school mentality by deferring authority for instructor qualifications and quality control to the DOE. Since beginning operations on May 4, 1980, the quality of education nation-wide has suffered; reading and math levels of young students have dropped dramatically, making the DOE the example of failure across the world. ATEC has forced entrustment of A&P quality to the DOE, which is involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles that cripple safety.
6. ATEC has sabotaged AMTS Quality Control. A quality control system is the lifeblood of any organization’s safety and productivity – especially an AMTS, who relies on qualified instructors and administrators to oversee. ATEC’s actions assure quality control won’t be guaranteed, that each student’s education and safety are now at risk. The FAA won’t be able to enforce quality control over accredited schools. Instead, quality control could be overseen by an accredited school’s non-aviation administration, such as a Liberal Arts department.
Ironically, ATEC’s website speaks to Representation: “ATEC is the voice of aviation technician education, its regulatory and legislative advocacy advances an industry-focused aviation technician workforce agenda.” Arrogance, thy name is ignorance. ATEC’s “voice of aviation technical education” just ruined present AVIN A&Ps’ reputations and anyone going through ATEC’s idea of A&P training. Will the thousands coming illegally over the border be run through A&P schools now? Will the ability to read and write English be overlooked or will A&Ps receive certification as they did in Saint George in 2005? More importantly, why would ATEC ignore rule-writing procedures? The power grab didn’t improve the AVIN, it robbed anyone – including the AVIN – of future opportunities to improve AMTSs. The AVIN didn’t find Part 147 curriculum changes of critical importance, so when the AVIN looked to more important issues, ATEC exploited Industry’s indifference.
ATEC’s attempt to influence policy
Amusingly, after ATEC discovered their RMG changes weren’t what ATEC intended, they told FAA, “That’s not what we meant.” The FAA’s response was, “This is what you wrote into the Law. It’s out of our hands.” Then ATEC tried manipulating FAA policy, as in ATEC’s Quality Control presentation that pushed for comments to ‘rewrite’ Advisory Circular (AC) 147-3C, by directing comments to ATEC. However, ATEC is confused; ATEC can’t write FAA ACs, FAA policy, FAA notices, or FAA guidance. Obviously, ATEC mistook their limits. Furthermore, ATEC was ignorant of Part 147’s intent. ATEC crossed a line that should’ve never been crossed. By rewriting the Part 147 regulations, ATEC dismissed Industry’s part. ATEC obstructed aviation safety, sabotaged AVIN community cooperation and thumbed its nose at all CHs who work towards aviation integrity.
Let’s be clear, ATEC owns this. ATEC is now the AMTS overseers. When things go wrong with ATEC’s unvetted system – as they will – ATEC will be standing alone without government immunity. ATEC is now responsible for AMTS student safety and A&P quality going forward. The FAA cannot save them, cannot help them, and the AVIN won’t be kind. Arrogance, thy name is Ignorance. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ATEC.