FAA's Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative

FAA’s Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative

Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 03:51 PM ET

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General aviation is by far the best way to get around Alaska, but the state's size, terrain, weather and lack of infrastructure can make it riskier than in the Lower 48. Here, a float-equipped Cessna A18SF Skywagon operated by the U.S.Department of the interior departs Anchorage's Lake Hood, the largest seaplane base in the world. Photo Credit: Jereon Stroes Aviation Photography

Key Takeaways:

Alaska's essential air travel is plagued by severely outdated aviation infrastructure, resulting in a significantly higher accident rate, which prompted the FAA's Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative (FAASI).
FAASI identified critical infrastructure deficiencies including insufficient weather reporting, a lack of usable instrument approaches, reliance on obsolete navigation systems, and limited communication/surveillance and ADS-B coverage.
Despite these long-standing issues and stakeholder input, FAA progress on upgrades has been slow, and the FAASI report offers mostly general recommendations for continued evaluation and development rather than specific, immediate action plans.

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Due to Alaska’s wide-ranging geography and limited road system, residents are heavily dependent upon air travel. In October, the FAA released the final report of its Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative (FAASI), which provides an up-to-date look at the continued problems plaguing the state’s aviation infrastructure. Completed in response to a 2020 recommendation from the NTSB, FAASI was designed to work with stakeholders in Alaska to “review, prioritize and integrate” the state’s safety needs with the FAA’s own processes.

The end result included input from about 100 individuals and organizations, who offered their insight and opinions on problems ranging from poor weather reporting to a lack of IFR routes. While the FAASI recommendations are all largely general in nature and skewed toward continued evaluation, development and study of various concerns, the final report (along with its earlier interim report released in April) is a document well worth reviewing.