Transcripts For CSPAN2 FAA 20240704

Ahead of the federal the head of the federal Aviation Administration Michael Whitaker reiterated to lummox bring a public hearing that their safety is a top priority and agency still reviewing boeings manufacturing procedures after a door plug mishap on board at Alaska Airlines flight. After the incident the faa cup really grounded over 150 planes and ordered inspections. This house transportation subcommittee hearing is about threee hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the subcommittee on a visual come to order. I hasis been in the consent of the. [cheers and applause] offers. Without objections order. Also ask members not of the baby people and ask question without objection. So ordered. As of monday members wish to consider dr. Parker please email to documentstimail. House. Gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of an Opening Statement for five minutes. Thank you for being here, administrator whitaker and i want to first off congratulate you for your unanimous confirmation vote. As youou know achieving some of that in todays times is quite remarkable, and we appreciate your expertise and look forward to working with you. I hope you understand that thats a strong support from congress, but also an enormous recognition of the responsibility ofog the job that you have now taken on. Weve heard a lot of descriptions about americas Aviation Industry, everything from its the Gold Standard, its therd leading edge of technolog. And weve also seen inte recent months that weve had incredible challenges in the Aviation Industry. I cant say enough that the Aviation Industry needs to be successful. In each be successful in terms of promoting technology, regulatory stability, safety, and partly at a think often folks lose sight of the Passenger Experience. Every american enjoys of the enormous benefit of the collaborative work commercial aviation has never been safer or more prosperous. Our aerospacece industry moves hundreds of millions of people every year, creates millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in economic activity, and forms a critical pillar of national defense. Maintaining our Gold Standard aviation safety is of vital to the United States and should be Urgent National priority, but the only guarantee of Gold Standard is what got us a yesterday is not going to be what keeps us there tomorrow. In the past year, and as i know to be seen several aircraft manufacturing defects, aircraft engine fires, all passenger and freight to strip off i for, nr misses at airports, pilot mentalHealth Issues, joe aviation accidents, poor Airline Customer service, especially for disabled passengers and other challenges. The subcommittees received testimony at the annexation struggling as integrating drones, commercial space transportation and Cybersecurity International airspace system and updating the technology thats needed to ensure efficiency and performance of air Traffic Control systems. Forys each and everyone of those instances you can find a provision in the house passed faa bill to address those issues. Im going tooi see that they ca. For one of those issues you can find provisions and house passed faa bill to address these issues. I want to remind you that we passed that bill months and months ago, and well before the september 30 expiration. That didnt happen by mistake. We worked methodically and want to thank chairman Ranking Member larsen and Ranking Member cohen, our leader sam graves, chairman sam graves and all the Aviation Team for plowing through literally thousands and thousands ofth stakeholder, a public, member of congress requests, and ultimately yielded a strong bipartisan, a strong bipartisan bill. Despite the differences, the house was successful in passing that bill byfu a vote of 35169, and similar to your confirmation vote in these times, that is absolutely extraordinary. Since the passage of the bill has received support from all corners of the aviation sector, joe aviation, business aviation, manufactures, labour members of the faa own workforce, commercial litigation, groups representing passengers, airports and on and on. The house but his legislation makes transformative changes in the Passenger Experience and in private aviation. It provides innovators of the Unmanned Aerial Systems and advanced mobility space, regular certainty they need to deploy some of the most advanced technologies weve seen in aviation. We also make meaningful reforms to expedite agency processes and to position the agency to manage an everexpanding Aviation System. And the bill contains numerous provisions aimed at improving aviation safety. With all the recent incidents, accidents, near misses, and problems, its nothing short of malpractice that the senate hasnt even bothered to mark up the faa reauthorization bill. The senates repeated failure f has destroyed 650 million in airport investment this year alone and delayed the enactmente of urgently needed Safety Measures and reforms. There has never been a worse time to leave the faa reauthorized, yet thats where the senates inaction has led us. Youre doing the best you can with the job you have, mr. Administrator, but its clear to me that the senates inability to do its job has realworld consequences that directly affect American Leadership in aviation and the safety of the traveling public. We stand ready, willing, andav able to help negotiate the faa reauthorization bill whenever the senate is ready. Hopefully, you can do something to help us with that, mr. Administrator, and hopefully, the conversation we have today underscores the urgency of getting a longterm comprehensive reauthorization bill signed into law. Ready to go . I know recognize Ranking Member carper for five minutes of an Opening Statement. Thank mr. Jerk. I disagree with everything he said, that we need to fund ukraine initial at the same time i described you are here to listen to it. [laughing] thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you, mr. Whitaker for coming before us today, such an important time with aviation and using an faa, appreciate that. Its important that we have leadership, but the thing i care most about people in the industry over the a last six, seven, eight months. We need a strong administrative and wendy and administrative and i think anybody is please with your selection. But without the recent problems, obviously natural fault, with boeing, the 737 max nine. We have airline collision, increase the runway incursions have been around for a while. And they know that thats on the top of your mind is getting something straightened out withh those potential intersections of airlines with the faa and Getting Better airTraffic Controllers, or more airon trc controllers really, more, we need to get a pipeline going to get more of everybody to give an opportunity to participate. The faas prompt response to the tjanuary 5 boeing incident is commendable, grounding more than what henderson aircraft and audit of going and 7 what you de there has beenhe a thinker but e agrees with and appreciate. Boeing must be held accountable because as you said and others have said safety is first and thats, that needs to be made clear. As this incident in the max eight crashes demonstrate, complacency is a luxury we cannot afford when it comes aviation safety. Boeing and the faas oversight must make necessary changes to its venture similar incidents and excellence to happen again. With the doors flung off in middle of the air or planes wholly falling out of the sky or whatever. As the faa and the ntsb have investigations into this incident accident unfold our subcommittee will stand ready to work with youth and although the parties to enact religious changes that are necessary but, of course, the first amended to do is get the reauthorization bill passed. Weve done our job, now that your job to get the senate to do their job. I want to thank all the faa employees to work day and night to ensure that no stone was left unturned when it came to redoing max ninth nine inspections as well as the Airline Maintenance and for many these thatuction to ensure aircraft can safely transport passengers again. Ntsb chair did a great job and shes having some of us over for briefing later today and showing us some of the problems, and we appreciate that. Shes been thorough. Based on what is been committed to nurture us in the public thus far, the work is been outstanding. We must everything we can to pass our next reauthorization. Done that by the next deadline march 8 it quickly approaching. We Neither Senate colleagues to act. Because we need to make sure that the airTraffic Control has more people and its beefed up. There are tricky issues with the reauthorization of the committee worked in bipartisan way toto fd Common Ground to pass a bill can save hundreds of provisions that would preserve and enhance the Aviation System and it showed robust and vibrant future for use aviation. That bill passed by an overly bipartisan margin, help the sin in the bipartisan as well. I look forward to your testimony. Appreciate the work of chairman graves, Ranking Member larsen and the other chair graves, we put together good bill and help we can have some success, compass on the American Public. Airplanes flying that we dont lose businesst to airbus. The french have made overtures what they tried you to make sure there are safe planes reduced all over the world but particular i guess plants for airbus such an important industry. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you, right member Corporate Network isfu a chairmn of the full Committee Chairman sam graves for private. F thank you, chairman graves and Ranking Member cohen for the hearing and thank you, administrator whitaker for coming in. The pleasure to have you before the aviation committee. United states Aviation System has been aoc major focus of our committees work this congress. Last year we overwhelmingly as has been the thing here so far today we overwhelmingly passed a comprehensive bipartisan Aviation Administration reauthorization that is going to dramatically improveha american aviation and the faa. T unfortunately the bill as has been pointed out and its many improvements have been held up in the senate for more than six months unfortunate the senate it appears the senate is poised to resume its markup of their faa bill and get a salad for dissing itit finally happens and i look forward to sitting down with our Senate Commerce committee counterparts to start reconciling the two bills. Serious issues within our Aviation System had played up time and time again on the nightly news and it might be the consequences of having no longterm faa bill are exacerbating them. Now more than ever american aviation and faa need some bold direction from congress, and we cant afford business as usual or half measures. Our bill will secure the growth and robust leadership the American People deserve in their aerospace system. While Congress Continues to move the faa reauthorization towards the finish line, were looking to you, or depending on you, to pick up that slack. Many of the provisions in the housepassed bill are noncontroversial and can be limited by the faa without any additional authorityd from congress. I would urge you and your staff to start laying the groundwork for anun expeditious and efficit Agency Implementation of the provisions with congressional intent in line with the congressional intent. Today is a great opportunity for members to highlight the aviation, their aviation priorities the that matter m and ensure that the issues are heard and understood, and hopefully are addressed. We also want to hear what your impressions of the agency are since youve taken over the agency, center confirmation, and what your priorities are going obvious in moving forward finally, we look forward to hearing an update on what the faa is doing regarding the flight 1282 accident and what youve learned so far. I do want to thank you, administrator, and your staff, for your very Effective Communication so far related to the incident and your related findings that you found so far. Open communication i think is important, a very important component in the committee having confidence in the actions taken by the faa, and hope that this continues as agency progresses with its oversight working on it and we all share the same goal of ensuring that the safety of our Aviation System and maintaining that Gold Standard that we all talk about. So with that, thank you again for coming before the committee, and with that idea back the balance of my time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rank a member of the full committee mr. Larsen frankness of five minutes. Is one, administrator whitaker. Thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it very much. Weve got a lot to discuss. This unit comes at a critical time. First with review the implication of the 2018th faa reauthorization which expired last september. Second, we have to getet jim to push for the passage of the copperheads a long range 2023 faa reauthorization reauthorization which passed the athouse last july. And finally we must examine the problems that the recent 737 max nine incident exposed. Safety has always been this committees top roadie and the in u. S. Is responsibly, is responsible for safely transporting hundreds of millions of passengers each yeaf without fear of harm or injury. Americans have to have full confidence in our Aviation System. That confidence must be justified. This committeesu must ensure tht the faa has the resources and tools it needs to effectively conduct its investigations, its audits and enforcement actions. As always weit have to remain vigilant to ensure Something Like this accident, that the likelihood of this accident happening is decreased substantially. I january 5, the accident was terrified of an onboard but thanks to the calm and professional actions of the t flight crew everyone landed safely. I fully support as his committee does the faas decisive response to this accident which included grounding the effective max nine fleet, a a separate investigan into whether boeing delivered on noncompliant aircraft to its customer, an overarching audit of boeings wax production lines and suppliers and a prohibition on increasing boeing 737 max production rate his Quality Control issues are resolved. Unfortunately its at the first time weve seen aircraft Quality Control issues in recent history. In may of 21 then chair defazio and i wrote to the department and the faa and boeing with concerns about no less than nine report of Quality Control issues at boeing production facilities. Since then there been dozens more 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 point leadership to take timee now to examine tht culture that theye have currently, that it is currently instilled and to improve. I look forward to the implication of the 2020 certification reform bill which this committee passed including the recommendations from the boeing Safety Culture review. Boeing has some of the most skilled hardworking and technically proficient workers in the world, and they depend on their leadership to instill the right policies so they can effectively do their jobs. Thesee dedicated women and men who work at boeing plants deserve answers and the flying public deserves answers. I also look for to the ntsbs preliminary port and the findings of the faas investigations. Ill continue to work with the chairs of the committee and subcommittee and the Ranking Member to take any potential legislative oversight actions needed to ensure the safety in our skies. Now moving on to reauthorization. As the committee continues its oversight of the max nine accident response we cant forget our other responsibilities. We passed an faa billhe in july. It passed 35169. We are waiting Senate Action and you still create a framework to ensure a safer, cleaner, a safer, cleaner, greener and more innovative and successful u. S. Aviation system. Aviation safety their numerous gaps that have to be addressed since the last authorization which we enumerated in the the review team report. The house bill addresses these issues including the hiring of air Traffic Control, installation of service, surface surveillance technology, administrator whitaker look for to hearing your takeaways from sa to review report and with the faas doing to implement the recommendations. We have to do more to ensure all passengers can travel safely and with dignity. The house bill improves training for Airline Personnel and contractors on assisting travelers with disabilities and mobility devices and directs the beauty to reduce damage to will and mobility aids. I want here the faas working with you and airlines to do more for passengers with disabilities. We have counted aviation workforce in this country and the faa reauthorization of triples funding for the faas Aviation Workforce Development programs to expand the Talent Pipeline to all americans. I look for to hearing what the faa can do more to recruit, train and retain expertise we need to lead globally. We have to provide a clear and predictable framework for innovators to scale new entrance sasafely while ensuring the nees of local communities are addressed. Our bill requires the faa as an example to issue beyond visual line of sight or pdf loss requirements for going operations and ensuring their safe integration into the skies and creating jobs. So administrator i want you more about what the faas doing on the rulemaking and you were to integrate these technologies. The recent boeing 737 max nine door plug accident is yet a reminder of what is at stake if we continue to delay addressing systemic safety issues and use aviation ecosystem. That is in part why the senate to move the bill forward so we can start to negotiate a a longterm faa reauthorization to ensure the faa and adsb have the authorities and resources they need to do their important work. Thank you very much. Yieldmp back. Thank you, Ranking Member larsen. Recognize Ranking Member cohen for instructions. Thank you, administrator whitaker, prick you probably know these things but theres aa lighting system in front of you. Green, get started. Yellow, get ready to end. Wrap it up. Read, its over. Ask unanimous consent that the witnesses full statement be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered. And also ask unanimous consent that todays and remain open until such time as our witnesses have provide answers to any questions that may be submitted to him in writing. Without objection, so ordered. The last unanimous consent record for 15 days for additional comments information submitted by members or witnesses to be included in todays without objection, so ordered. Threeth of them in a in a. Yield back. Without objection. Thank you, Ranking Member cohen. Again, administrator and welcome you. We should you be here today. Written testimony has been included in part of the record. Ascii delimiter all remarks to five minutes. With that, administrator whitaker, your recognize for five minutes. Thank you, chairman graves, chairman graves, Ranking Member larsen and ranking membe cohen members of the subcommittee. Thanks again the an opportunity to discuss of the current and future priorities of the faa. 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 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 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 colleges to move graduates quickly to onthejob training. We have initiate yearround 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 panels report later this spring. The third priority is continuously improve our safety processes and procedures. For example our air Traffic Safety Oversight Department now 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 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 boeings 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 decisionmaking going forward. I am honored to lead the team of 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 agencys 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 longterm 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 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 youre chairman thats 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 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 whats 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 dont think it was perfect its 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 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. ■e i want to hear from you what is the faa doing to ensure theyre 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 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 theyre thg this delegated functions . There are a couple of answers 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 theres 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 thats 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 thats being done. With audit and inspection which while removing inspectors in. I presume we look at whats 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 faas 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 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. 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 thats gone on around that and its comments. I think its important for us to make it distinction what might be economic regulation what the safety regulation. 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 weve got trouble identifying issues around difficulty with seats. If moore tends to be putting up one exits, but all that information has been considered and will certainly take your feedback as well. Thank you. Appreciate you giving series consideration to getting this done. Seat size does have to do with getting out of the plane. If youre crowded inpl there if you get some we next to you, its physically challenged because of girth, it makes it difficult to get out and they can imagine people doing that. Japan it was 18 minutes. So if you work on the 90 0 seconds, work on the seat size, real life safety and comfort of the same. Yield back. Thank you mr. Cohen. Chairmans comment to defer for five minutes. Thank you, administrator whitaker, berwick too start with a couple of perfunctory questions. Would you agree the Airport Improvement Program grant assurance 19 operations and maintenance requires the file test im going to read this right of the manual. The airport and facilities which are necessary to serve the aeronautical users of the airport other than a facilities owned by or controlled by the United States shall be operator at all times in a safe and serviceable condition and that accords with the minimum standards for maintenance and operation, andnd it will not cae or permit any activity or actions thereon which would interfere with its use for airport purposes. Do you agree with that . Im not familiar with it by word but it sounds okay. That sounds right, okay. Would you also agree the faa airport compliance manualan section 226 requests for interviews of aeronautical property for other uses generally requires the faa to approve the use airport facilities for nonaeronautical purposes and, in fact, it explicitly states the faa approval shall not be granted if the faa determines that aeronautical demands, and aeronautical demand is likely to exist within the period of interviews . I believe thats accurate. Thats myy understanding. Its fight of the manual. Ill give it to you want to see. These documents from the faa make it abundantly clear that airports are restricted in their ability to use the facilities for nonaeronautical purposes, and when theyre doing that when requesting so, they must receive faa approval. The restrictions are in t placeo protect the flying public for safety and also to protect investments that taxpayers have made in federally funded airports. Yet, i will tell you ive seen a disturbing trend in cities choosing to use use the reph as chicago ohare, midway, bostons logan s facilities to house foreign nationals brought here by the administrations, well, im going to say failed to enforce the immigration laws on the books. That clearly falls in my mind into the category of nonaeronautical use. Now, my question to you is, as he faa approved in a request to use airports to house illegal foreign nationals broke foreign nationals . The faa has a role speedy i know but you with the administrator. As he faa approved in the requests to house illegal for nationals . After that if you let me. Okay. My understanding is speedy i want to the time efficiently. So the faa does approve requests for Community Use, whatever the category. Theres a huge number of categories for Community Use and our criteria is whether it aeronautical uses or is otherwise disruptive. So how many, how many requests have been approved for housing illegal for nationals . I understand is theres been one airport that is made that request. Th so the others that image and, well, was one that made the request any of the ones that i mentioned . I believe it was, is either kennedy or ohare. It could be ohare but then it wouldnt be midwife or logan yet the housing illegal for nationals at the airport. Did he faa make the required determination that no aeronautical demand is likely to exist this is an airport and abrading right from your regulation here, chapter 22. 6. Did the faa make that determination . A determination was that it did notid interfere with aeronautical uses. So in that w case, i guess te faa wont enforce its grant assurances, which it says right here, literally on number one, these assurances shall be complied with in performance of the Grant Agreement for airport development, airport planning compatibility program, grants or airport sponsors. The federal government is paying for it. They make the agreement, agree to it and then dont follow it and the faa stucco again think about it. I want to use some time to a friend come over and ask this question. How does walling off portions of the airport to have unvented illegal for nationals, which passengers in america have to walk the site can these unvented illegal for nationals. Howdre does that promote safetyr utility or deficiency in these airport . I think her out of my area of expertise. Im not a with that. I think that answers the question. Im going to yield some time to my good friend from texas mr. Nehls. Mr. Administrator, i am going to reference a letter dated favorite, 2024, to the honorable Maria Cantwell and audible ted cruz. Are you familiar with this letter on february 5 thats you sent . Im not sure what the topic is. Im going to make sure because, a conviction you get a copy so it comes to me i have a lot of questions regarding this letter. Ideally back. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. Recognize Ranking Member of the full committee mr. Larsen. Thank you. Thank you, administrator for come before state. Helps us out of some things. First in your test when you mention hotline that workers can call as of was a plot line. Do you■ t7 have that phone numb . For the record can you state what it is . Can use my folks where they can go in order to make that call . We have a link on a website. So faa. Gov where you can go point access to that hotline. Weve also set up a specific outline for boeing employees which weve had communicated out at the factory so they can reach us directly. At seven faa. Gov is will . Yes. Faa. Gov right now if they had any concerns. Is that a confidential communication . Its run through a very confidential process. We have grouped the focus of whistleblowers to make sure identity is protected and that appropriate action to take a. Thank you very much. I know faa has chosen to put inspectors in the facilities. Does that include in spirit as well . We do have inspectors in spirit as well. And thats a new o can you ge us a range of the numbers of people that you deployed into the boeing and spirit the subtlety . I think we have about two dozen at boeing and maybe half a dozen at spirit. Can you give an indication of whether you think that would be permanent is this going to be shortterm . How long does it last . Is a part of what you need to be doing as part of a permanent solution . We are undertaking a sixweek audit. Were in the middle of that now and that audit will give us guidance and we need to go. Were also going to look at this Culture Survey thats due at the end of the month. And then make a determination of how many folks we need on the ground in both places. We have made that determination but it do anticipate we want to keep people on the ground. We dont how many yet but we do think their presence will be warranted. Do you have any initial thoughts on the impact of the max nine accident and its influence in your decisionmaking about oda authorities, how much to pull back from boeing at this time . I think the events of januaro issues for us. One, whats wrong with his airplane . But two, whats going on with the production at boeing . There have been issues in the past and they dont seem to be getting resolved, so we feel like we need to have a heightened level of oversight to really get after that. So we was certainly triggered by the max nine. But no permit decision yet about removing some authority from the oda organization at boeing . No. Weve task mitered to give us of you and what the options are. Ive heard boeing ceo mention an option for thirdparty, Quality Control. So i thinky its important that we look at all options on the table and o understand how do we make changes that are going to give us a different result. I want to move to a little bit more to the faa bill that we passed. A judgment as you have time, i ask you this was a great the liquid is built but we really want to impress upon the senate how important aspect try to get it done buts how important it is to get a final bill done. Is there anything in that bill, can you talk to anything in the bill that you would have needed ahead of this, or do you have i had a junior fifth, or do you have everything that you need, alisa for this particular investigation . I i guess i will make two comments. One is we really appreciate the effort on the bill because it creates a huge amount of disruption to not have it. So the constant running up against deadlines, ive only been with remotes and it probably had a dozen meetings on what happens if theres a shutdown, what happens if we dont have authorization . It doesnt create a lot of uncertainty for us. I dont see anything in particular that its possible. Ill come back in six months and tell you that we need something. I think were going to need more boots on theun ground, people inspectors. We dont have them inspector on aircraft certification side of the house. So that will be an addition of manpower, but we havent scoped that and i think we can do it within our authorities if we can find the funds for it. Selected outline some of the issues in the 23 bill on accessibility, on bv loss, a few of the things and google ask you to smith is for the record. Takes to come up. Appreciate and yield back. Thank you, Ranking Member larsen. Chairman westman is going to defer and were going to recognize the judgment from florida,k mr. Mast. Thank you, chairman administered. I want to talk about training and air traffict controllers, i do want to go back to november picu announced the faa would expand collegiate training initiative, also known as cti, at this program started specifically the underutilized capacity among College Programs that meet the faas equivalent levels of safety to help train airTraffic Controllers. We all know that something we need, and help address that shortage of potential 3000, maybe more, maybe less airTraffic Controllers, certified controllers. My question is a want you to bring us up to speed on what the faa has done since november to implement and new enhanced cti program. What is being done . So we done, were trying to do is make sure these schools are duplicating the curriculum that we teach at the academy. So we put some definition around what that curriculum is and also look at what physical tools they need. The flight simulators, tower simulates come things of that nature to put together a very clear curriculum. And my goal is to make sure that in the Academic Year 24 25 e actually executing on this so that we start to see graduates from those schools come directly into f a18d controllers. The immediacy of the issue is why were pushing so hard. Of the couple dozen cti schools out there, were hoping to have at least half of them able to start training students beginning in the fall. Did you see new programs opening up as result of your effort . I like to see that. As a our initial focus. Were trying to work with the schools. We are set in the space but it dont seem to be somewhat of the schools particularly those with a technical bent cant have this program as well. Okay. Thats the extent of my question today, mr. Chairman. I yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Master recognize the judgment from arizona. Thank you very much, mr. Cha. To the administrator thank you for being you, for come to speak to us today, your first drink before this committee. Americans are upset. They have right to be upset. Last month the plugs on a 737 max nine and caused the door plugs to fly off midflight. Thank god no one was seriously injured in this accident, but make no mistake, this was a close call, to close. The incident along with reports of near misses the planes collided as it apart and arrive at americas airports in the pasture is concerning and, frankly, unacceptable to all of us on this committee. We need to pass a comprehensive federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill thats currently sitting in the United States senate to give the faa and this administrator the tools they need to enforce safety rules and prevent catastrophe. In this very committee we crafted a a strong bipartisane your faa bill, and the house passed it nearly unanimously. We did our job, and now the senate needs to do theres as quickly as possible. Mr. Whitaker, as he faa administrator you with a hint of aviation oversight and safety. I want to underscore what Ranking Member as discussed here today in terms of oversight, particularly on production facilities inspection, the crucial part of making sure our planes are safe. Section 521 of house faa reauthorization calls for the faa to update the risk model use to inform frequency of these inspections, but we have problems right now. Can you in a couple of sentences explained that the agency determines the frequency of these inspections and what impact these inspections have on production . Thank you, sir. The agency uses a risk model with respect to manufacturers. Its a fairly uniform survey to identify the level of risk and some inspections will be driven by that. That modelat will likely evolve based on the rollout of sms systems, which should reduce risk and give us better insight intogh whats happening. And also the case of boeing based on the Culture Survey that we expect to receive later this month. Thank you. I want to address another issue that was touched upon by our Ranking Member. That is the recent trend of mishandled or damaged wheelchairs aviation passengers. This recent trend of mishandled or damaged wheelchair incidents by commercial airlines raises serious concerns about the systemic terriers for passengers with disabilities. How was it faa working to prevent these incidents and improve accessibility for air travel for people with disabilities . Tank user. The dot has a large role in this related to our customers are treated on aircraft, so we work very closely in supporting dot to make sure accessibility is an option and that innovations, make sure that is enabled. Its an important issue for us. Youre going to a lot more from this committee, we need a parking if youre you in terms of improving the travel experience. On near misses i mention the response the recent trend of runway near misses at some u. S. Airports, the house passed faa reauthorization would expand grand sedans and detection equipment a and medium hub airports. How would increasing the deployment of this Technology Help airTraffic Controllers and flight crew . These near misses of one of those areas with is a lot of ability to have tailored solutions for each yearbook in every airport is different and has its own challenges but a lot of these surface of what his letechnologies or tools in the tower can really make the difference and create awareness to avoid these types of mishaps. Thank you so much. My remaining time, administrator, i want to give a thank you. I want to thank you and faa for the Collaborative Partnership in helping Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport expand its infrastructure to accommodate extra gurgle. Gateway i airport is the busiest contract airTraffic Control tower in the region and contributes nearly 2 billion to our regional economy. They 2 recently completed the nw terminal south concourse due in part to 14. 4 million in a bipartisan infrastructure law fund, ribboncutting will be held in a couple of weeks. The cooperation between the faa and her arizona delegation in congress has been crucial to this growth and i look forward to a continued strong working partnership to deliver innovative ways to increase capacity at gateway. With that i thank you and i yield back. Thank you. Thank you mr. Stanton. Recognized the gentleman from arkansas. Thank you, chairman graves. Thank you, administrator whitaker over here. I want to follow up with my colleague mr. Perry line of questioning. I know your whole testimony was basically about safety, and we all want safe airports. And mr. Perry read to you from the manual about how a nonaeronautical purpose at at an airport has to be approved by the faa, and you stated that only one airport had approval to be used for the nonaeronautical purpose of housing migrants. Would you like to correct that answer is that the answer you want to stick my . To my knowledge, this is not an issue, ive only been three months, not an issue to spend much time on, but to my knowledge there was only one application. Its also my understanding applications are only involved if its behind security. Some of the properties on airports dont come through our office for approval. Its really just behind security properties. Its well documented many airports have been used for this purpose. So do you think hes airports are in violation of any federal law, or do you think they found a way around that . I assume they are in compliance. Noted otherwise but i will is to make sure proper procedures are followed. This is an issue that he dont think we would have to deal with in congress. I chair the committee on natural resources, in we got a similar issue with National Park service land where the administration has approved use of National Park service land to build migrant shelters, which thats kind of crazy that you would think that that would even be an issue but it has happened. And in researching the process how that happens, it appears that maybe secretary mayorkas had a lot more to do with that and even the doi secretary. Are you aware of any meeting between secretary mayorkas and secretary buttigieg to discuss issues of using faa or use airports to as migrant . Im not aware of any. Are you working meetings between a other dot or dhs officials to discuss this issue . I am not. Have you been in any meetings regarding this, or phone calls, just getting briefed for this hearing . I have not had any meetings. So we sent a letter, chairman graves, chairman of the full committee, i think 60 some odd letter lasted a november asking about this issue. And as of today we have still received no response. I know your new, but why do you think we would be getting delayed response on this issue . I dont know but im happy to follow up afterwards. You will follower up. Well follow up with secretary buttigieg ezell. Was all followup on the status of letter and ill let you know. All right. Its amazing that this is something thats been berryville document in the news and there seems to be no response from the administration. And i know your new again, but you have no real knowledge of whats going on here, or the rules associated withor it. So yeah, if you would follow up with secretary buttigieg and tell him were still waiting for his response, and mr. Chairman, i yield back. Mr. Chairman, i give my time, remaining time to mr. Nehls. General in from texas recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Administrated did you look at that letter that i referenced that was dated march 5, you sent to cantwell and ted cruz . Yes, i have. All right. Did you write that letter . That i write the letter . Yes, sir. No. It was. Drafted for me. Whot drafted it for you . I dont know. It went through throughs this issue was developed internally to respond to requests for Technical Assistance on various issues. Is his letter thehe official position of the faa to oppose the raising of the mandatory retirement age without a study before hand . The official position is that we dont have a position on the retirement age butwe if the changes would like to have data to support the change. Ave 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 its your decision to write this letter. Did have any influence in the drafting of this letter, yes or no. Not that im aware of. Okay, im yield. Gentleman yields back. My friend from kansas, miss david is recognized for questions. Thank you. Thank you to chairman graves and to hencke Ranking Member cohen for this hearing today and thank you to chairman graves for the authorization of the federal Aviation Administration in the house yesterday. Mr. Whitaker, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to be herement i believe your experience and leadership will be invaluable with the faa. I would like you to address the issue thats addressing the National Air Space system, failure of the faas no tam system in january of 2023, highlights the risk to the fine public when aging critical structure isnt replaced in a way. And maintains one of the oldest critical aviation structure in the world. One such system desperately in need of replacement is instrument landing systems. Theres a map up there, ive got one here. This ios map demonstrates how many 1970s are operating. More than 1200ios systems at hundreds of airports across the country. Ios is only system approved to support all weather landings at the nations busiest airports and as such required to remain in operation for the foreseeable future. However, the vast majority of the safety Critical Systems were replaced in the 70s and 80s and are now functionally obsolete. And this body passed a bipartisan infrastructure law more than two years ago with a set aside of 5 billion to replace the aging systems, but the faa told Industry Leaders and members of this committee that modernization of the system wasnt an eligible expense under the program. And then aviation chairman and i engaged in the colloquy on the floor which is shown here, expressing congressional intent that this was an eligible expense. This was shared with us d. O. T. On august 17th, when mr. Larson and i noticed there was no money for replacement of the system. We asked for a timeline and budget detailing specific allocation of iij resources to landing and navigational aids equipment for fiscal year 22 to 26 which you can see here. The response we received, which is up now, contained none of the information that we asked for. In followup conversations with faa we have yet to receive a satisfactory response acquisition and modernization of the system has lagged. 14 of them are sitting in a cave in independence missouri simply waiting to be installed. At the current pace of modernization, four to five systems per year, it would take more than 100 years to replace the systems. This means that faa expects many of the safety Critical Systems to be in operation despite being over 100 years old. I cant imagine thats actually the expectation. And just so were clear, what system failure looks like the most likely impact is on capacity, threwput and delays. When an ios is out, runways cant be used for all weather operations, but theres also in inherent safety risk should a system fail in the middle of landing operations. Mr. Whitaker, whats the faas schedule for deploying these devices systemwide and as you might be aware, the professional aviation Safety Specialists proposed a Pilot Program for the systems for 18 months and curious, is the faa considering that proposal. Thank you for the question. Youve hit on a very interesting issue at the faa which is how we fund facilities, equipment and particularly were in a situation now where we have a lot of redundant systems in the we have facilities that need to be replaced as well. With respect to this particular issue, my understanding is that that infrastructure funding is available for deployment of the ios systems, particularly the ones you mentioned in storage, and my understanding those funds will begin to be used for deploying the systems. Do you have a timeline . I can certainly refer to your office with specifics on the timeline. And i would very much like a specific response given the length of time that this has been going on. The bipartisan infrastructure bill gave us a fiveyear timeline and were over two years in. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, ms. Davids. Mr. Whitaker, thanks for being with us and congratulations. Thank you. Mr. Whitaker, how many positions are at the faa . How many positions . We have 45,000 employees. And what percentage of those positions are filled . I dont have an exact position number for you. Is the covid emergency over . I believe so, yes. And may 11th, President Biden declared emergency over. I understand you use a hybrid telework model, is that correct . It depends on the function. So, obviously, our controllers are all onto job. Other employees are still on a hybrid situation. How many days a week or how many days a week do the employees have to show up in the twoweek work period . The policy, again, depends on the employee, and the job description, but the baseline is four days. So four days your employees have to in a twoweek period show up in four days. What if the air Traffic Controllers only showed up four days in their work, would it effect commercial, general aviation. As i mentioned they show up every day. I understand that. What if the controllers would show up for four day two weeks, would that interrupt or work. They cant control traffic from home, certainly would. You know what im getting at. If they only showed up would there be a problem for our general aviation and commercial aviation across the country, yes or no. Of course. How do you track employee assessability and productivity in this hybrid model . Its up to individual managers to manage their work force to meet the needs of thor their commission. I can tell from you what im hearing from stakeholders accessibility to faa staff is limited and it seems evident that productivity is waning, as several high profile rule makings are still ongoing and you know this, the rule for regular beyond visual line of sight operation of Unmanned Aircraft systems, that final report was concluded in march of 2022. And now its not expected until august of 2024. In a line of work place, flexibility is a recruiting tool however, in an agency with a Safety Mission first, do you find that a twoday inperson work week rather low . It depends on the job position, so many of our employees, not only controllers, but inspectors need to be in place, but others, it may work for working remotely, i think it depends on the position. Mr. Whitaker, i believe that the f. A. A. Should hole itself to the higher standard and the faas telework schedule requires again, theyre only inperson twodass or correction, four days, for a twoweek work period and id 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 system, rather, Safety Review Team, concluded that under the faas most committed to congress, when others are for the hiring plan produces a negligible under staff level resulting in a net increase of fewer than 200 by 3032, that is extremely concerning for safety and efficiency are the Aviation System. Can you reassure the committee that the faa will prioritize this usual and address the problem . I can. And i understand that the faa has committed to fax mum controller hiring for 24, 25, 26. Will the faa commit to a longer term maximum posturing, it will take longer than three years to return to healthy controller Staffing Levels . We certainly commit to max hiring until were healthy. There are competing models in place and the Mission Research board to review those models so within three years we will have a new model in place and i will set those questions. Thank you, last question. Will you prioritize and support general aviation. Like you do can commercial and will you support rural airport investment and infrastructure . Absolutely. Thank you, and again, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. Garcia. Thank you, chairman and welcome administrator whitaker. As you know, boeing recently withdrew its request for the max 7 to receive a safety exemption, which would have allowed the aircraft to be certified with a known defect. If granted as you know, they have an issue that can cause the pod surrounding the engine to break and fall off in certain conditions, this could have potentially catastrophic consequences. Boeing is now working on a longterm fix that will retrofitting the entire max fleet. How did the faa, in your understanding, fail to detect such a defect during the certification of the max 8 and max 9 aircrafts . Well, 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 legislation, actually, thats my understanding of how that was discovered. While i appreciate the faas attention to this topic, boeing has demonstrated time and time again that it will cut corners on safety in order to maximize profits. My second question, administrator, is this, in response to the recent Alaska Airlines accident, the faa has launched an investigation into boeings compliance with manufacturing requirements. Has the faa comprehensively engaged with employee groups, those involved in the production and have they and those who have filed whistleblower reports regarding reduction of Quality Assurance procedures in the manufacturing system and if so, how is the faa handling these reports . 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 instructions theyre getting and what incentives theyre dealing with. On the whistleblower, we dedicated a portal for boeing employees, but we also have a normal portal for whistle blowers and we have a pretty regimented process on how we deal with those reports how the identity is protected and the reports are taken seriously. Should i take that to mean that there is currently engagement with those employees . Thank you. Of course, i look forward to working with the faa to hold our Aviation Community to higher standard of safety. Its equally crucial for the operation of our Aviation Industry, their airport workers are paid, livable wages, airport workers are largely latino, black and immigrant work force. Theyve been overlooked and underpaid for the vital role that they play in keeping our airports running. My bill is a good jobs for good airports act would change that. Administrator, are you committed to doing what you can to ensure that the airports that the faa oversees are delivering fair wages and benefits to all employees . Im very committed to making sure that they have a very safe working environment. Safety is my mandate and we are focused on safety at airports, particularly on the ramp, so weve taken some initiatives around that to make sure those employees are in a safe environment. Thank you, and i yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Garcia. Recognize the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Benjamin. Thank you, mr. Chairman, whim, mr. Whitaker. You know, youve got a tiger by the tail. I was going to speak on Something Else and i am in a moment, but using airports or housing undocumented, thats a big deal. Its a big deal to the communities these airports are in. Its a big deal fiscally, its a big deal for safety, and i know youre new so i want to be fair, but we need you to drill down and tell us more whats going on. Please check thoroughly on this issue. I think its a totally inappropriate use. Safety is our number one issue. It was never meant for housing and in these airports, there was a plan and this is a fact, it was leaked out by a blower, 10 different airports they were going to house illegals in. Of course, we got a hold of it and Atlantic City International Airport in my district they were talking about housing up to 60,000 illegals in a community of 30,000, 40,000 people. Thats wrong. So i need some commitments from you to thoroughly drill down on this issue to know how many airports are involved. A 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 of requests and from whom it came. I brought second buttigieg when i was here, he wasnt aware of it. Of course, we have the information, i need to you do that and i would appreciate if you get na information back to me and the entire committee. Could you commit to getting us that information . I can commit to making sure that were complying with the law around any approval mr. Whitaker. We dont own the airport. Youre an important part of what happens at the airport and you should be included. You should be part of it. The people, quite frankly, of our districts, of our country, 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. Its not a big request. Its a real obvious thing and ill look forward to that report. You know, last month, a fuselage of a domestic boeing 737 max exploded open at 16,000 feet. I know youre real aware of it. 180 people on board. We are unbelievably blessed that nobody died, that there werent injuries, that it wasnt much worse than the result that we had. This accident, in my opinion, in my opinion is a result of decades long process of globalization, and in the early 2000s boeing aggressively outsourced its business model, the strategy, peaked in 2005 with the sale of the wichita base spirit aero system and its a Global Corporation and identified as faa as responsiblement you all identified as as responsible for the faulty components behind the Alaska Airlines incident. This is an example of how boeings outsources has led to boeings decline and boeing has hidden its decline by am by appealing to diversity, equity and inclusion for investors and cool thing to do and their stock no doubt has gone up 400 . Their product has gone down, but their stock has gone up which is real interesting. You know, you should be worried about safety when youre selling private equity firms, but they were not. This is a onetwo punch of globalization and social engineering. It doesnt belong, job number one is safety. Job number one is safety for every, man, woman and child that go in those airports, and its a company that is struggling to reliably produce safe aircraft. Mr. Whitaker, are you concerned by the trajectory of boeing as an American Institution . An American Institution . Are you concerned . My concern is that boeing makes safe aircraft so im less concerned about externalities and more concern about the aircraft coming off the line. I would maintain its part and parcel. They have a job to worry about safety and, and when youre worried about all the other issues, the Green Economy and everything else, that should be your job number one. I hope you have a plan to put them back on track. I sent you a letter in december about the Faa Technical Center and i would like to submit this record for the, chairman, for the record. And these include National Air Space systems, electrical utilities and Technology Transfer programs. 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 because the American Public takes it seriously and new and wish you good luck. Gentlemans time expired. Recognize the gentle lady from alaska. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And good morning, mr. Whitaker. General aviation rates in alaska outpace the country. The recommendations of the 2023 faa Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative tiger team, including the eight automated systems, and installation completed in september of 2023 . Thank you, maam. So, ive fully supportive of the nature of alaska and the role of general aviation and had a chance to visit when i was deputy and got to tour quite a bit of some of the remote facilities and i think the program has really been a very Strong Program and we support that and well continue to support that. On the awop, i got a briefing and seven of eight has been deployed and the eighth is unacceptable because of flooding or climate conditions and well make sure that this continues as well. Excellent. As you aalaska is unique, i think that 82 of our communities are not accessible by any other way except by airplane. The faa passed or the house passed the faa reauthoritization bill and it indication section 510 the don young Aviation Safety Initiative which calls on aviation stakeholders to Work Together to reduce the rates of fatal accidents by 90 by 2033 in alaska, hawaii, puerto rico and other american territories and this provision includes a number of initiatives designed to further the objective and im wondering what you see as steps that are necessary to achieve this kind of reduction. Well, i think its laudable that we have such an aggressive goal and thats how we brought the commercial aviation accident rates down to its current level and getting the stakeholding 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 weather and unpredictable weather and redundancies around landing systems and the lake and i think this is an area where technology and Quick Deployment of technology can really be a benefit. So, i think its really positive that all of these stakeholders are working together towards that. Thank you so much. Thank you. I yield back my time, mr. Chairman. Regrettably, i yield to mr. Mann. Thank you, and thank you for being here today, administrator whitaker. I help the big part of kansas, a strong relationship between kansas economy and aviation. There are 91,000 jobs attributed 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 the faa needs a road map of updated congressional priorities to adopt long overdue policy changes and registry requirements. Delays in rule making and inefficiencies in the work force are bottle necking the industry. And imperative that the work force and Aviation Industry are able to address the backlog of concerns that my colleagues and i have all been raising for months so that america can return to its Gold Standard. And a few questions, mr. Whitaker. Weve heard a lot about the faas rule making process and innovation for safety and national leadership. What will you do under your tenure to make this process more timely, transparent and accountable . Thank you, sir. I think transparency in general, i think, needs to be improved and efficiency needs to be improved delivering services, registrations, for example, certification process, so we are work on those issues. Rule making is a little different because its driven by the administrative procedures act and we require for certain comments and procedures. I think the best is to get the transparency and know where we are in the process and try to keep the process moving, rule making can have a dozen steps in it and making sure that were continuing to keep sunlight on that and keeping things moving quickly within the confines of that law. And they specifically addressed the aero systems and adapting the Regulatory Framework for the evolution of Unmanned Aerial Systems and advanced technologies. I think weve got to acknowledge that this is here to stay and its a growing part of the Aviation Industry tremendous potential for kansas and the rest of the country and how do we make sure that the rest of the faa and quickly reviewing these technologies with safety front and center without having unnecessary delays as well. Its one of our big challenges and right now its moistly been dealt with in a oneoff manner. Recently weve gotten much better on the aus and through this exception process so weve been able to satisfy a lot of the operations and such. Currently would have to operate under existing rules, which, you know, is doable, but not scaleable, if you will. I think we need to work as industry with all stakeholders, and integrates all of these technologies and keep up with the base of development. We dont want to be in the way, but need to be deployed safely and thats our top priority. I agree. As as an aside. I hear from manufacturers in kansas all sizes how long it takes for the faa to respond to new ideas on how do we do things better, how do we innovate, how do we make sure that the u. S. Continues, that we are the world that, of course, is manufacturing, big part of that is having faa thats we are the world leader, Understanding Technology and where the industry is at and how do we partner together to promote safety. So, last question, in your testimony, you outlined initiatives on increasing the air Traffic Controller work force. What strategies are you implementing to bolster pilots and others in the industry . Thats a great question and remiss for not mentioning were actually hiring in all sectors. Controllers are the most immediate safety need for us, but were hiring in all sectors and were competing with all of those other industries that you just mentioned in a market thats a pretty good market if youre an employee. So, ive often said im the chief recruiting officer for the agency so were doing direct outreach for the schools and were trying to cast as broad a net as we can to people coming into the faa. Maybe come in 30 years or three years, we want to make it easier for folks to come through and do something afterwards. Its not its a priority and its not an easy one to get after. Thank you, i yield back. Thank you, gentle lady from nevada is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Nice to see you, mr. Whitaker, and congratulations on having this position. Thank you. Its a tough job and a tough place, but i know youre up to it and we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Aviation is so important to my district, las vegas. Weve got a very crowded air space with the military, with the drones, with the commercials, with the general aviation, so, this is really critical. And i want to thank you all for your recent investment from the bipartisan infrastructure law, you brought 49 million for the infrastructure Grant Funding for all the airports in my district and thats really helpful and really appreciated for improving runway safety and taxi upgrades. Id 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 and including trainees and theyre often force today work overtime six days a week and at least stress and burnout and would you just say again for the record how youre trying to address that issue . Youve identified all the problems that ive also identified coming in and i think its one of our most pressing needs and i would add it takes years to make an air Traffic Controller. Its a long journey. Its not an easy job. Its a very rewarding job, but we need to hire as many as we possibly can. So we are ensuring that our own process is delivering as many as it can through the economy in oklahoma city, but we also want to work with universities in the private sector to make sure that were able to pull as many from that source as well. So weve almost more plexable with military hires. Used to be twice a year, if you didnt happen to leave the military at the right time, touchdown wait six months. We now have a constant hiring of military controllers which will increase the folks who can go directly into the towers or centers. And were working, i think one of our most promising outlets will be aeronautical colleges and universities where the students can get the exact curriculum as the academy and then go directly into a pass the exam and directly into a tower or radar facility. So, going forward, that will allow us to really increase the pipeline, but in the shortterm its going to be hard to because it takes so long, its going to be hard to move that needle very much until you get at least two years out. I think theres a place in some of the Community Colleges for developing programs like this. I think that would that can certainly that could certainly be eligible if theyre able to teach that curriculum and have the training tools. If often requires being around a lot of retired controllers. They have a retirement age and become instructors afterwards. But id like to see that Program Expand as we go forward. Thank you, me, too, if we can be helpful, let us know. Also, were seeing more and more in different modes of transportation that companies are acting in ways that seem to prioritize profits over safety and you have mentioned in your testimony that the agency found inspections of the ground in 7379 max boeing quality issues were quote, unacceptable and required further scrutiny. Do you have confidence in your suppliers that they can maintain this Quality Control, its not a fox guarding the hen house kind of situation . I think we are going to look at this process really top to bottom to see where the incentives are, where the failures are in the system and were going to demand that that quality come up to the appropriate schedule. We certify aircraft to be built to very specific specifications and we have to regardless of the other motives theyre not going to build more airplanes until they meet that standard. You dont see a problem with conflict of interest with inspections . Were looking at that specifically. We asked them to see where they might bring in the third party for Quality Control and assurance to make sure that you have a neutral set of eyes on that issue. So thats something that were looking at. And just a second to throw out there, about the framework beyond line of sight and now its based on a waiver system and we want to put the rules in place. Are you moving forward on that. Were going to move as quickly as we can. A lot of people want to you move or quickly. Ive been getting that message. Thank you very much, ill yield back. Thank you, the gentleman from utah is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chair. On behalf of the group, theres a remarkable place of conversions and connections of we have in port, its important we have the conduit of places like a hub like utah. That being said, the faa has identified multiple time blocks where the d. C. Airport is currently underutilized. Do you believe more flights can be added safely and efficiently to that process . So our focus on with respect to dca is whether its safe. So were not involved in the decision around where the flights can go from dca. So our focus is entirely on the safety aspect. It is an airport thats very close to capacity, there are some hours where theres room for new capacity, but it is, as you know, a pretty full operations, tends to operate at 60 operations a mind or an hour, im sorry, basically one a minute and we cant squeeze one more in there. That seems to be my focus. And according to the reports there are blocks that can be effectively done safely accord to go the faa. Well always make sure that its operating safety. If something suffers, it will be efficiency. All right. Outside of our perimeter are americans who deserve better pricing, better value, and access to representatives, and encourage to provide a consumerfree market to our nations capital, i would appreciate that and my hometown airport Salt Lake City is currently phase two of a threepart, 5 billion development. Can you explain the impact of the delayed faa reorganization for International Airports like that going through modernization . Yes, i think youre hitting on a very important point. These projects have a certain momentum and need to be funded and under current authorization. So i think its vital. Okay, im going to yield my remaining time to my good friend from texas. Thank you, i apologize, mr. Administrator, these wonderful gentlemen give me their time and they dont have anything else to say and ive got so much to talk about. For the record i asked you did you write this letter and you stated you did, but you had somebody to ask you to write this letter. Can you ask you who asked you to write this 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 couldnt specifically somebody come up to you, hey, mr. Administrator, im drafting you this letter, and we want to send out to senators. No we put out a lot of correspondence and the last four weeks ive been busy with its been written by somebody by the fair enough. You did state, i bring this letter up, you state its not the initial position of the faa to oppose raising the retirement age to 67, but you have some concerns and in the letter it talks about we always prioritize a robust processo as 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 . What the members up here, what is a live environment . Eplain that to me. I believe what that means we dont change the rule to see how it plays out. We usually like to do the research before we change the rule. Would you consider are you familiar with basic med, basic med the basic med safety study . I am. All right the faa authorized it. They let it run, they looked at it after three years, like 2017, 2018, 2019 and reported back to congress, its right here, i have it right here. A faa report submitted to congress as required on march 10th reviewed three years of general aviation data and concluded that the basic med program is safe. Isnt that a live study . Theyre flying around, general aviators are flying around and looking at whether a third class medical versus a basic med and they found out that basic med worked. Thats a live study, would you agree . That was based on a legislative mandate. Yeah, but i know its a legislative mandate. We dont , but thats a live study, how could you not agree with that, theyre flighting around and reporting back three years of data and saying, hey, theres no basic med, thats had a live study. Just want to it says we do not in a live thank you, mr. Chairman. Prior to the alaska accident, did the faa find any lapses in boeings 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 recently are pretty wellknown and even just in decemberment we had an airworthiness director loose on bolt rudder system. I think there were also some recent reports of production issues with boeing. Not to hammer on that, you did mention some bolt issues recently. Has the faa become aware of any other lapses since the start of the investigation . So the investigation is ongoing and we are supporting n. T. S. B. And their incident itself. So there are no findings to really discuss at this point. The audit investigation is going on and the only thing i can say about that, it hasnt shown any findings that have led us to immediate action so were just going to take the data we get from that and analyze and move forward. Thank you. Mr. Whitaker, one of the faas most successful government industry partnerships is the contract tower program. 262 smaller airports participate in this critically important air Traffic Safety program, including 21 in california. One of which is in my district. The critical air Traffic Safety program is important to develop Regional Service and supports dod Flight Training operations and military readiness as a pilot flight schools all across the country. It is also important to note that contract towers account for approximately one third of all tower operations in the nation and about 70 of contract 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 hiring challenges were having with air Traffic Controllers, no incentive to try to tinker with the system as its working. In fact, we also do hiring from contract towers as well so its a source for our own controllers so were fully supportive of the program and want to make sure its working, particularly in smaller airports. All right. Also staffing shortages continue to be a challenge throughout the industry which you just now touched on and including contract towers. What measures can the faa and the industry undertake collaboratively to address challenges at these towers . I think were doing all that we can do from our that weve been able to think of for our own hiring purposes, but i think, you know, its become a very competitive market, there are a lot of new entrants in different aspects of aerospace so i think that we have to compete for 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, but i think youre the right person for the job 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 youre going to help us achieve. So thank you very much. Mr. Chair, i yield back. Thank you. Recognize the gentle lady from oregon. Thank you, mr. Chairman, nice to meet you, sir. Thank you. And i represent the oregon district and grateful to be on this committee. Long delays and cancellations have become too common in airports in large part shortage of pilots. It would be ridiculous for us to look at the current state of things and say everything is fine, lets just keep the status quo. Last week, through my work on education work committee. The flight education act was included in the major Student Loan Program and common sense proposal closes the work force back letting prospective pilots with the same loan opportunities for students at traditional four year schools and increases the maximum amount of federal stafford loans and eligible to borrow up to 11,000, increases fox independent institutes 137,500 and increases the maximum amount of federal direct to a total of 65,000. Mr. Administrator, if prospective pilots would access these Student Loans and use them completing the faas regulated training would that help improve the Pilot Shortage . I think that would be a very useful initiative. It is very expensive to become an airline pilot, which means 1500 hours so you can become a private pilot with as few as 40 hours. So getting from 40 to 1500 is a hugely expensive endeavor. Like any other profession, doctor, lawyer, plumber, it costs money to get there, and so you would agree its a positive outcome, a positive initiative. Absolutely. So moving on, what should be the most common part of air travel safety . Of course, youve heard plenty about the boeing alaska accident today amongst others, but its not lost on me it happened in oregon, my home state. We choose Alaska Airlines and fly back and forth. Boeing jets have cause for concern and many questions. Can you speak to the level of confidence once again today in the faa steps for the 737 max air plug . Yes, the mechanical fix for that. So youd fly on it. Yes, i would. Congressman carbajal talked on my last question on the tower project. And if youre in full support of continuing that. So i will yield by time then to my colleague, the remaining time. Thank you very much. Mr. Administrator. Obviously, this letter you did not write, but you had the Government Affairs team write, i believe, and listen, youre a busy man. I dont think maybe you proofread this thing very clearly. There are some issues here as relates to the we do not test in a live environment i believe that basic med safety study is a prime example and i have a few more, i believe. And that its interesting, theyre taking some pilots in canada over the age of 65. Alpa is taking dues from pilots over age 65 and we know that they want to squash this, they dont want this retirement age raised. West jet is flying alpa represented pilots over the age. Thats your study. Lets talk about the part 135 operators. We allow pilots to fly over the age of 65 under part 135. Is that not a live environment . Could you explain to everybody up here 135 is versus 121. A part 135 carries a typically under 30 passengers. Sure. Yet jets would be an example . Thats correct. Do part 121 and 135 share the same air space . They do. They do. So they taxi with part 121, ie, the big airliners, delta, united and could you get the net jet, taylor swift flying to the super bowl in her supersonic jet could be in the same air space taxiing on the same runway, why do part 135 that flies around the millionaires and billionaires across the country, why can they fly to the age 67, but united and delta, that gentleman, we fire them at 65 . How does that make any sense . Congress pass add law limiting them to 65. Congress passed a law limiting them to 65. Right. How do you feel about that . Do you think thats just, thats right . I think its what congress did so we dont second guess congress. I think our point was if you change it, we want data around that. I think thats perfect. I yield back. Thank you, sheriff. For the regard, im not sure that taylor swift flies supersonic. The gentleman from massachusetts, mr. Awesen kloss. And this committee did good bipartisan work and needs to happen in the senate now. Mr. Whitaker, you were earlier getting questioned r questions from my republican colleagues from migrant housing at the airports. By statute faa has jurisdiction over air side not land side at the airports, is that correct. Thats correct, sir. Theres one instant of at air side of an airport asking to house migrants, is that correct . Thats my understanding. Theres been no documentation of air side being impeded at one airport, jfk. Thats the standard, yes. And is the faa an aeronautical Safety Organization or an Immigration Agency . Our mission is safety, sir. The hard working men and women of Border Patrol which is actually the agency, a tougher and fair compromise to address the surge and if nigh republican colleagues are so concerned about solving this problem i suggest they stop asking you, sir, for asking and start having speaker johnson for answers and question number one might be are you Donald Trumps Campaign Manager or speaker of the house. Sir, back to your job. You authorized the max airplane to fly again after the Alaska Airlines accident. Why do you believe the max 9 is now safe . The max 9 was grounded because of concerns of quality of manufacturing for the plug door, for the focus of that directive was to inspect those aircraft and come up with a repair that would assure that it met the standard of safety built into the certification of the aircraft. Once that inspection and repair scenario was agreed upon, then the aircraft was allowed to return to service. Now, in 2020, you too being back, not you but the faa took back airworthiness from boeing. What did that do for oversight for boeing then and was that regarding the max 9 . I wasnt there at the time as you noted. I guess i would say in retrospect, given what happened with the plug door, were looking at that process and what additional steps for the oversight. Last august, the faa announced almost 45 million for Boston Logan Airport for reducing the risk of runway incursions. Can you speak how investments like that would do for safety and reduce the risk of near misses . So issues that happen in the airport environment and runway, each airport is unique and has its own geometry and certain geometries create natural situations that can cause confusion. So trying to and we call them hot spots and trying to identify the hot spots and correct them, either through signage, lighting, or sometimes moving taxi ways is highly effective in keeping them safer. So the good news about these types of events is theyre really Straight Forward Solutions and weve been deploying those. I want to join my colleagues in saying how happy we are to have you in this position and how qualified, i think you are in this job and looking forward to seeing the work you can do for maintaining and improving americas Gold Standard reputation for airline safety. Yield back, mr. Chair. Thank you, mr. Auchincloss. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you, mr. Whitaker for being here todayment after a robust and transparent and bipartisan process the house passed the faa authorization last july in an overwhelming 351 to 69 vote. It appears were finally going to see some Welcome Movement from our colleagues in the senate later on this week. Hopefully that means we can have stability to your agency. To the Aviation Community and the flying public schnarred our Gold Standard of safety and continued american aviation leadership. Its that leadership id like to speak of today or in this particular case the lack thereof. As we held hearings we heard from witnesses especially in the drone delivery industry they were expanding in markets like australia instead of the United States due to a lack of registry certainty. Ive been encouraged to see the faa in recent months to issuing a number of part 107 waivers beyond visual line of sight for drone Delivery Companies and waivers represent a strike balance between safety and forward momentum, but its a journey in my estimation thats been moving far too slow. Mr. Whitaker, earlier you told my colleague chairman grave, that the rule making will be published, quote, this year. Last september, a faa official had pegged that timeline at august of 2024. Is that timeline slipping or is august still the goal . I could look, if you like i could give you a specific answer. I was covering from my lack of memory on an exact date. I would like a specific answer if you dont mind. Ill just circle back with you, ill give you a precise answer, i do not recall. Id like a precise answer. And furthermore, if the timeline in august, told back in september, if that timeline from august is slipping id like to have you circle back and tell why the timeline is slipping. And my question, once that notice is published are you able to commit to publishing a final rule within 12 months of the proposed rule . I can commit to keeping the rule moving as quickly as possible. It depends on what comments come in, how they get arbitrated and then it has to go through a review process as you know, but well give as much transparency as possible and try to keep that moving as much as possible, i think its an important rule and we want to get it out. And i agree with you, its an important rule and one that due to so many delays and timelines, we have companies reevaluating their innovation, their r and d here in the United States and we want the companies to continue making investments in the United States. I agree. And thank you to your commitment. With that id like to yield the balance of my time. Thank you, sir, weve talked about this letter, weve talked about the fact that i dont believe that its paragraph read, sir, i really dont. You seem to be a great guy. I think you have a bright future, but this letter is full of inaccuracies, it has flaws, it says we dont test in a live environment. I dont think you believe that, thats not what you believe and we can point that out. The last sentence of the letter its critical to provide the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigation. You talk about conducting research. Everybody thats listening, watching, japan, new zealand, australia, our friends to the north, canada, all have pilots above the age of 67. Theyve had no safety issues. There are no safety issues. The head of the faa in new zeeland, and went up to canada. And new zealand pilots up to 75 and they had no issues. Thats your live study, sir, call them, ask them. I even got, believe it or not, john prater, the former president of Airline Pilots association that says in the past, reference 60 to 65, in the past commercial Airline Pilots who did not want to stop working at age 60 took jobs with International Airlines or charter operators for which the retirement age was higher. The experience of the pilots should be studied said john prater president of alpa, look at canada, and corporations and like net jets. Referring to large private aviation. Gao could expand and ask the airlines themselves, thats the avenue they could use if they choose to expand. I yield. Thank you. Recognize the gentleman from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to ask you for holding this hearing. Incredibly important topic at an important time. Thank you, mr. Administrator for being here, i know that were all united in wanting to restore confidence if our air travel. When we have some americans travel quite a bit as we all do, and sitting next to some folks today who were saying they were filtering out in their travel plans, the planes that they think are unsafe and when we have that, we know that we have to respond, and so lets respond together. Here our responsibility is to help you to ensure that were remaining the Gold Standard and you certainly have my commitment on that and i wanted to ask you in reference to boeings internal oversight, you say that its time to reexamine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risk. Could you discuss how the faa intends to change oversight at the manufacturing site . What were doing, were doing a number of things, 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 to understand sort of the ground truth, if you will, of whats happening, what the pressures are and based on that outcome we will look at putting together a program to continue to add direct oversight to what otherwise was sort of an auditing approach so a much more handson approach going forward. That will be really designed after this sixweek audit period has been finished and we have a better understanding of whats going on in the factory. Do you need any further authorizations or support from the congress in order to do that . Is there anything in the faa reauthorization that would assist in that . Well, i do appreciate you saying that the willingness to Work Together. I do think with a problem like this, we all need to be growing in the same direction and congress, boeing, the airlines, the faa. I think we all want the same outcome, which is safe airplanes so we will certainly come back with you on that. We do anticipate needing to hire more inspectors. The oversight before was a different skill set and we need folks who are trained to be on the ground and much more handson. So we do anticipate some hiring. I think we have the authorizing authority to do that and we may need to find the money to do it, but i think that will be a top priority and well either come back for that or well make it work one way or another. Theres inherent intention here for the competition, the need to rush products to the market. I remember back when we dealt with max initially two years back and the internal discussions about needing to compete when youre also your own regulator or your own doing your own internal reviews. Your own regulator or your own internal reviews. Independent investigators. The american flying public, its a cost thats worth is buried in terms of making sure well have another incident like what we had. So in order to have a truly safe system seems to me we can rely on the manufacturers themselves to be their own watchdogs. Is it something you would agree with . I degree the Current System is not working because its not delivering safe aircraft we have to make changes anything also to look at the culture, to your point, incentives, try behavior and maybe we need to look at incentives to make sure safety is getting the appropriate first run of consideration that it deserves. Yet. When i played in the nfl, they would let us their own referees, humor, every time the offense blindman is not holding call, you know what im saying . Certainly something we should work on. I want to, really quickly to the announcement that you just issued without the installation of the first modernized tower simulation system for Traffic Controller or training in my state. Can you elaborate how this technology will benefit our controller workforce thats always stretched so thin . So these simulators, they are in a way simple technology. Its a circle of screens that really reproduceshn the environment of that particular airport and allows controllers to train on that environment. So the works for new controllers but also if you have a system, if you have a problem at your airport, for example, a hotspot area or some other persistent problem that weve identified existing controls can actually train to the problem in that simulator. So it can be thrown at them as a situation and becomes a a leag tool. So a truly important for crate t training but also for helping move controllers fast through the training process. Great. Thank you so much. I yield back. And mr. Allred. Agonize the german from new york. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Whitaker. We welcome your leadership. It goes without question the faa in the least my estimation and many others has been in need of leadership, and certainly faa reauthorization critically important. Were hopeful the centaurs nervously and that we can move that bill into law. Without question, americans have witnessed too many alarming incidents from aircraft employee treatment to Aircraft Safety and Passenger Experience. I appreciated participating in a briefing last week regarding the door plug incident and look forward obviously to the ntsb report and faas reaction and response. On the topic of safety i was very happy to see in your testimony to reference faa rulemaking on drug and uncle testing for foreign repair stations. One of the first bills entered his was a global Aircraft Maintenance Safety Improvement act which ensures parity of safety protocols between domestic and foreign Aircraft Maintenance, youre familiar with, for a happy to say thisn provision has been included in the house passed faa reauthorization and im hopeful that it will remain a part of final law. In the area of in particular, both treatment of aircraft employees and Passenger Experience,rc supporting Mental Health and breaking down barriers is a top priority of many of ours. Its why i joined chairman graves and urging faa to modernize its middle of protocols and take immediate steps to dismantle barriers to discourage individuals from seeking care. I do appreciate your testimony to reference the faa of Mental Health and aviation medical classification will making committee. I certainly as do others urge swift release of report the consummate committee and ask for your commitment here today in supporting making. Mental health and the treatment in particular of aircraft employs a top priority within faas regulatory environment. Yes, sir. It is a top priority at a think its long overdue to update the approach to Mental Health and treat these as Health Issues and have a clear path to treatment and getet people back in the cockpit as quickly as possible. We certainly acknowledge the rise in Mental Health concerns across america. They are made even more dangerous in confined environments like aircraft and certainly many women are flying or participate in keeping us safe in that arena these are adequate care. I certainly look forward to the progress and urge swift action. Another question i just wanted to touch on as a relates to advanced air mobility, a topic that we all have focused on pretty acutely. Can you provide us a timing on the power, power to lift askar as long as you committed source a new committed completing it in 2024. Im interested as in others getting your insights in english Stage Development esr is in. That rule is under development we do expect a final rule by the end of the year. Thank you. Mr. Whitaker, i want to reinforce my support of your efforts. In response to comment and question from a colleague for massachusetts, i i just without the faa when it desires to is a great deal of influence on lands that activity at airports having management of the first ten. Certainly when the needs to be faa clarity i encourage it. With that, thank you i yield the bowels of a time to mr. Nehls. Thank you again. In the letter again it is critical to by the agency an opportunity to conduct research and determine mitigations are talked about the. Mentioned to you and thank you for being here, i mentioned yu japan, new zealand, australia, canada. They are operating with, pilots over the age of 67. Do you think it would be a good idea to maybe reached out to those countries and asking hey, hows it working for you, canada to the north . I mean any issues with this . Any issues . Do think that would maybe be good idea to get help accomplish what you asked for in this letter to conduct research and determine medication . Certainly if the legislation is passed we will look at that option. I think its very, very important because its all there for you. I mentioned a a talk bit aboue 130 fives, right . These 135 operators that are flying the millionaires and billionaires, a lot of people cant fly that initial beer. They are flying around the millionaires and billionaires and those pilots can be 67 years old. Any faa is okay with that, correct . I mean they can fly, 67 years old and fly the millionaires and billionaires in the same airspace and the outflow presents that they dont fly to operate i the same picky somethg truthful. Their flight in the same airspace you would agree without . Likely that they fly in the same airspace per . Yes. They do. How can we allow pilots to be 67 to fly the millionaires and billionaires but not allow the delta and united and American Airlines do it will now have a short. Set these age requirement. I know it. Were going to fix it today. Recognize the patient gentlelady from california is browned. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Appreciate that. Welcome, mr. Administrator. Thank you for being here. Last week learned again about Spirit Aerospace and the incorrectly drilled holes in the fuselage. Im wondering if you know at this point in time has faa determine how many aircraft were delivered to customers with these problems, and what actis are being taken to address this newest problem with boeing and its supplier . So were working with boeing to understand what happened here, and so investigating that piece of it. These are small rivets that hold a window in place, so likely what that means is its, well, we know its not compliance we want to understand what it is not been manufactured per design. And then well see what corrective actions need to be taken to repair the windows and when that has to be done. On talked about incorrectly the fuselage, w that they had drilled holes that was too close to the edge. Yeah, those were around a window. Okay. In the fuselage. Okay, very good, very good. 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 technology will improve aviation safety and how you would use the new deputy administrator role to further advanced technologies . I think that technology has been one of the great tools that we t had to reduce the accident rate in aviation. And i think theres a lot of benefit in expanding whats available, particularly into ga aircraft to provide more Situational Awareness in the cockpit. I think the focus needs to be looking at ways to bring that kind of technology to market as quicklyri as possible, recognizg the positive impact that it has on safety. So i can see that will be helping to facilitate that action. So the deputy administrator would be really responsible to 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 your programs and having these pilots at 67 flying around. How is it working out . Dont 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 . 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 nearperfect 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 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. 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. 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. 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. I have been reemphasizing since ive 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 its 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 dont care what his second, but safety has to be first. On an operational side. 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. Ninetytwo 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 full committee and 68 other full committees of the hou they asked very straightforward questions about the biden administrations 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 . I dont 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 just wandering the streets coming out of this facility. Im 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 faas 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 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 administrations 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 dont have any information about that. So we have, you are the administrator of the faa and you dont 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 dont consider an airport in faa location. 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 dont 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. 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 jerseys 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 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 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 governmentsponsored 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 agencys efforts in taking on the issue. I am still concerned that this is all against landslide employees not receiving the same level of response. 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 ive 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 ive had some discussions 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. Ive 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 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 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, 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. 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 dont 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. Ill look into it. Happy to respond. 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 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 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 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 airports and the entire country. One of the first airports to return to prepandemic 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. 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 highaltitude 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. Im out of georgia and visited the tower, the airport down to just one more facility that we want to visit up there and very impressive. I know that youve got your work cut out for you and in like so many and like so many agencies, and so many hearings that i attend, i think one of the main themes that i get over and over again is how we have such a lack of modernization. Its adequate. I dont care for software, hardware, whatever it is a seems like the federal government just doesnt do anything to stay uptodate or improve their technology. So last year with norton going to have for my perspective look like the department of transportation spent a lot of time on changing the name of that acronym. Instead of updating the 30yearold software, which was with the ship that their focus. Can you tell me what steps you taken since you confirmation to speed up the modernization of technology . Where are we at on note them and what what it specific systems you may updated . I think one of the challenges that we have is to do modernize with something a lot of legacy st har to take out of the airspace. Even some of the systems that were in place before were born are still used and sometimes its the military relies on assistance. Itsyi just folks in the flight online time. We ended up supporting huge amount of antiquated systems and that impede our ability to modernize. Theres been a lot ofs modernization over the past ten or 15 years, what you wouldve seen in the center are new systems. And basically a new platform for new technologies to make theem system more efficient. But there are over a thousand systems that make up the airspace some of them are pretty old and i think what we saw with the notm is willing to have the redundancies in place to make sure if theres a failure it doesnt bring the whole system to a halt. We are very focused on the resiliency of that system and part of what ill be doing going for a start and have conversations about what the next phase of modernization is, the nextgen phase is over and out when you do talk about how these new technologies advance their nobilities and rosa come into the system and how its going to operate in the future. One of the other policies i am focused on here in this committee is highspeed, High Altitude travel, and Civil Aviation as a matter of fact. And as matter of fact we got put into the faast reauthorization n amendment the states the faa needs to come up with a study on how to certify new hypersonic engines. If you, note come look at faa te european counterpart, theyll have issued a roadmap for High Altitude operations for hypersonic aircraft. So can you tell us what, if anything, faa is doing to prepare similar kinds for american airspace . Further, can you tell me what else agency can do to ensure that american Companies Continue to lead in this innovative field . I dont have a specific answer on the High Altitude airspace but it will be part of what we look at as a talk about the airspace of the future. Well also look at what other jurisdictions areoing. Well have to reinvent the wheel but but i think we need to also have our own conference roadmap andnt integrate these new technologies that gives us a way to bring them on as quickly as possible while keeping that same level of safety that we all want. My times almost up but i just wanted to make a last quick comment. When i set stratcom the were about 40 down on air Traffic Controllers. We saw lots of veterans and they are great people, to put in those positions because they are very organized and very dedicated. And i would use caution you, seems like weve made a move to get away from hiring people on qualifications, and hiring them on classifications. So i canir assure you that we hire everybody on qualifications. And i can also tell you that we have just recently put in changes to be much more flexible in how we hire out of the military because we are able to iphones. Military up with them directly into facilities. Thats one area were trying to open the pipeline. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair and i yield back. I now recognize ms. Holmes norton for five minutes. I think the chair and Ranking Member for holding this hearing children more about the challenges the federal Aviation Administration is currently facing, and to emphasize the importance of passing a long term faa reauthorization bill soon. Mr. Whitaker, as cochair of the quiet skies caucus in the member who represents the district of columbia, which is plagued by aviation noise, i have been fighting to reduce aviation noise in d. C. And across the country. While the safety of the Aviation System must be the faas priority, the faa needs to do much more to combat airplane and helicopter noise, which will harm the Health Quality of life and that Structural Integrity of homes. Last year i got revisions including the house passed faa reauthorization bill, to combat helicopter noise in d. C. One of these provisions would require the faa within 180 days to create and implement a helicopter noise sharing mechanism for all helicopter operators in the National Capital region and to make the data collected, accessible to the public online. This data would help us develop Additional Solutions to address helicopter noise. I hope the provision would direct the Government Accountability office to conduct a study of reducing helicopter noise in d. C. , almost all of which is generated by government helicopters. This study would be required to consider the extent to which military operators consider operating over u unpopular areas outside of d. C. For training missions. The extent to which vehicles or aircraft other than helicopters could be used for emergency and Law Enforcement response, and extent to which helicopter operators have assessed and addressed the noise impacts of various factors of the helicopter operating helicopters including altitude, the number of flights, flight paths, types of aircraft, operating procedures, and pilot training. Mr. Whitaker, what, if any, steps is the faa taking to reduce airplane and helicopter noise overpopulated areas like the district of columbia . What i can say is in the past several years weve made some improvements in that area. They have hired specific folks or focus on community engagement, and in situation s where airspace is being redesigned or with our persistent noise issues, they will engage with organizations to have Community Meetings and understand the views of the citizens and see ifn there are actually realtime changes that could happen in the airspace to try to we certainly havent heard it yet. It hasnt been felt here yet. On the specifics of d. C. No one a fairly tight footprint and the approach past are limited by the restricted airspace. There probably are not a lot of options beyond the northsouth arrival and departure for dca. So that may be a limiter in this case. Are right, thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much behind recognize mr. Nehls or private. Thank you so much. Understand here, mr. Administrator, im on the subcommittee. I do wait be on someone last a a minute but hopefully we can finish this and i think its a very much for your time. Obviously this is very, very important to the industry. It really is. This legislation obviously has passed this house. Passes overwhelmingly and now it is sitting there over in the senate. I think t we beat a dead horse n part 135. Everybody knows the faa knows that we are pilots flying around better 67 years old in these private aircraft and everybody else with delta, we hired them at the age of 65 envisages lot of sense to me. I find this letter that was issued just a day or so before the Senate Markup of the bill that is lingered for over a year on a matter that is been repeatedly proposed over four years. A matter that which are as specific intent, you had a hearing before the Appropriations Committee just a few months ago and you answered quite matteroffactly about a phone executing the legislation of congress and i think we agree with that. This is congresses decisionmaking ufo myth once it is past, correct all right pics and it seems like this letter which i dont, i believe is full of loss and think we pointed this out, it seems that some opposition to raising the age if you read the letter and unity between the lines, it appears the faa that you are against raising this page and thats just not true. You are notai opposing it . My intentte was not to oppose it. My intent was identified issues that we have identified very technical systems which is rent International Compliance and data for what this means. And and i think weve addrd almost issues with icao, your age, when raise the age of 60 to 65, almost worked out, the great onra gray, a member of a a grn gray . We obviously have it here and i wouldnt have great on gray. The point is i think that your background, you are former pilot i think your 62. 62, right . And i think we have a fiveyear term, five years . D d think we should give you a cognitive test when you turn 65 . Before you finish a term do you not believe we should give you a test to make sure that you are all there, when you turn 65 . I think we do for the pilots. We do it, they get the ekgs, physicals. That is a stringent process. We do for them. Why shouldnt we do it for you . So i think with respect regulating airmen and the safety, medical survey case is here to protect i agree. Can you agree that the safest aviation record the past ten years . Things have gone very, very well, knowing that we passed legislation that allowed 135 to five the 65 dash but we have had issues, to have any issues right there with part 135 right now . Any concerns that Safety Record . As a set ive not looked at that i will help you. There is no problem there. There is a problem. Your wheels up. You know who that is . Delta, though private version of why . I would have the with field the delta ceoeo if used to raising concerns about their safety as relates to part 131. Date in the audience this guy right here has been at delta for 30 years, former air force plane pilot, he 63 and a half. America, were going to fire this guy in 18 months. Its an arbitrary number. We does come up with a, 65, lets just fired them. He goes to all the testing, he does it all but we are going to fire this man because of that age. But yet you out there touting a project recruit retired experience military air Traffic Controllers, but an existing fully qualified not yet retired pilot xml unsatisfactory. Nobody in this hearing, my friend, i think mr. Massie brought it up once, talked about retirement age today. Nobody brought it up because it past this committee. It passed the house of representatives overwhelmingly, and now its over in the senate. Alpa got beat over here. Ambrose again be. Now is kind of filler train wreck and try to get you to confuse the other members in the senate with this letter making it sound like this isnt safe. All the data is there. Life in private testings there. You can reach up to japan, all these other countries. You know that we got pilots flying at 67 part 135. Its all there, all the data s there, and alpa, ambrose he was so blessed that with a lawsuit. 2500 alpa union paying members paying members filed a lawsuit on ambrose e for a breach, a breach of duty for fair representation. G shame on him. Lets get this done and i think it is incumbent upon you to get some clarification as relates to this letter before the senate meets on thursday. Would you be willing to do that for me . Look at this letter . Im sorry, what i would you be willing to look at this letter t and look and ty and say hey, listen, or some problems with this letter. Its not true. I think ive clarified intent of the letter. Very good. I appreciate that. I yield back. The gentlemanac yields. Are there any further questions from members of the committee who have not been seeing none, that concludes her hearing for today. I would like to thank the witness for his testimony. The committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]. No except by had, as it unfolds, the famous reporter men and women view of Society Today is solutions of the term mark ten part series reproduce between nobel prizewinning economist Milton Friedman in polk coproduced the first aired but the best compelling of the name. Welfare, education, equality, consumer and Worker Protection and inflation. Watch free to choose, salaries 7 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan2. If you miss these parents covered, provided at any time online at scam. Org. 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