National Transportation Safety Board

摘要

Certification of systems that are critical to safety of flight has been an issue in several National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations of transport-category airplanes. In 1999, the Safety Board expressed concern about the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) certification process during its investigation of the rudder actuator in US Air flight 427. In 2000, the Board suggested the need for a directed examination of the certification process in the investigation of the center wing fuel tank in TWA flight 800. Subsequent investigations of the horizontal stabilizer jackscrew in Alaska Airlines flight 261 and the rudder system in American Airlines flight 587 also raised questions about the certification process used by the FAA to determine compliance with airworthiness standards. These four accidents resulted in 715 fatalities and accounted for 60 percent of the air carrier fatalities that occurred from 1994-2001. In each of these accidents, the Board identified a safety-critical system that suffered a catastrophic failure, and issued certification-related recommendations to address system-specific design, operational, or maintenance issues.