As evidence of her continued fight to improve aviation safety at foreign repair stations, today U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) announced that the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has included a number of her provisions to address the problems associated with outsourcing airline maintenance in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act of 2009. Recently, McCaskill sent a letter urging her colleagues to include language from her legislation, the SAFE Air Act, in the bill, which is being considered by the committee this week and will set funding and policy guidelines for the FAA.
"Uncertified foreign repair stations are a serious aviation safety risk, and it's time we did something about it. Right now, maintenance is being performed at stations that the FAA has not certified or inspected and do not even have basic drug and alcohol abuse programs. To think that these types of stations are doing work on the airplanes that carry Americans across the country and around the world every day is incredibly scary," McCaskill said.
McCaskill's original legislation seeks to resolve a number of safety and security issues at foreign repair stations that perform maintenance on domestic aircraft. The provisions included in the FAA reauthorization bill would require that all locations where aircraft maintenance is done be certified by the FAA or meet equivalent standards, require that all foreign repair stations have drug and alcohol programs, and require twice yearly inspections of foreign repair stations. The Committee passed legislation clarifies that foreign repair stations may establish drug and alcohol programs consistent with the host country's laws and that the program of inspections required should be carried out consistent with trade agreements.
Since her arrival in Washington, McCaskill has been a proponent of increased safety and security at foreign repair stations. Since 2003, a number of reports from the Department of Transportation's Inspector General's Office have indicated serious gaps in security at uncertified foreign repair stations which coincide with an increasing percentage of heavy maintenance on domestic aircraft being performed abroad.