Flight Operations Quality Assurance FOQA

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Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA)

• Captain Jeff Bayless
• Director - Flight Safety
• United Airlines

International Symposium on Transportation
Recorders
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FOQA Objectives Philosophy

• Promote the free-flow of safety related
  information
• Identify and correct unsafe practices
• Provide feedback
• Provide information

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• Established a Steering Committee
• Reviewed other carriers Letters of Agreement
• (SAS, British Airways, and ALPA proposed
  agreement)

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• Drafted objectives
• Signed UAL/ALPA Letter of Agreement
• Received FAA guarantee of immunity

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• Developed trust between pilots and the Company
• Steering Committee established a Technical Team
  and Exceedence Guidance Team

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• Technical Team
• Steering Committee

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• A320 recording capabilities
• Placement and routing structure
• Data Bus Mapping

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Level I Informational Parameters

• Minor deviations from SOPs
• Trend analysis
• Issues addressed through simulator training
  general training materials
• Flight Crew anonymity guaranteed

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Developing Exceedence Parameters
Level II Alert Parameters

• Significant deviations from SOPs
• Enhanced trend analysis and detailed event
  analysis
• Flight Crew anonymity guaranteed

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Level III Safety Parameters

• Major deviation from SOPs
• Event could result in aircraft damage
• Data is provided to Exceedence Guidance Team for
  review

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Level III Safety Parameters

• Exceedence Team has ability to identify crew
  members
• Team can recommend voluntary de-identified
  training, issue a Safety Bulletin, or SOP changes

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• Program support - initial and future
• Establish equipment specifications
• Define confidentiality agreement

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• Trial period/system verification - July to
  December 1995
• Over 3656 flights (9467 hours) were accumulated
• QAR diskettes were removed every 2-3 days

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• Steering Committee trial review - January 1996
• Pilot education/notification
• First formal report was published in April 1996

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• Potential problem of using the FOQA program for
  incident discovery rather than trend analysis
• Technical Team needed stronger Engineering
  representation. Flight Operations is making
  greater use of FOQA data than Engineering

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• Initial parameter definitions were too
  restrictive and generated nuisance exceedences
• Vendor selection required more time than
  originally estimated
• Assign full-time person to develop program

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• Universal Tech. Resource Services, Inc. Study
• Demonstrate benefits of FOQA
• Identify critical success factors
• Develop roadmap and start-up checklist
• Participation
• Fleet Engineering (B737-522 and B777 )
• Other Air Carriers
• Integrate Video Simulation Replay

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