Pesky NASA reports
While “not screwing up” is definitely the best way to go when initiating, conducting, and terminating a flight, we may screw up slightly from time to time. The Nasa report (as Chuck and common slang would call it), which is actually now called the “Aviation Safety Reporting System” is a way to bring up concerns about aviation safety. The other, and for Chuck quite convenient, thing that the ASRS enables pilots to do is to possibly avoid the imposition of a sanction. The FAA claims that it will waive the penalty in an enforcement action if the pilot can show that he or she filed a timely NASA report and has otherwise satisfied the criteria for a waiver.
However, we recommend not to use the NASA reporting system like Chuck does because it also says “…to qualify for the waiver, the conduct must have been inadvertent and not deliberate, and it must not involve a lack of qualifications or competency. Finally, the pilot must not have been found in a prior FAA enforcement action to have committed a violation within the preceding five years.”
And I am pretty sure that Chuck has been in a FAA enforcement action in the last five years and that his daily routine of filing these reports “might” be seen as deliberate rather than inadvertent.
But either way, if you are a pilot and you have never heard of this, check out the link to the ASRS and a little article about what exactly the deal is with this little tool on AOPA. It’s very handy information to have! …just in case…
https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2012/october/16/nasa-report-your-get-out-of-jail-free-card
I filled one of these out after accidentally straying into Class B airspace due to being unfamiliar with the GPS I was using and it’s interface being somewhat misleading. I felt what I had to say on the NASA report, about non-standard navigation tools causing confusion (should be standardized ideally), was a legitimate concern for them to think about. I do seem to recall something about a maximum number of times a pilot could use this to “get off free” per year or something, so routinely violating FARs and using this to get away with it wouldn’t work. Still, totally seems like something Chuck would do.
I remember my cousin told me he had to fill out these reports once because he accidentally dropped dummies outside of the military airspace. Apparently it didn’t help and the FAA got quite mad. He ejected out of his Texan later that year and had to have a friendly talk because the aircraft crashed outside the military airspace. Dude flies Eurofighters and Tornados now and apparently is quite good. Just goes to show that Chuck is probably not the biggest worry on the FAAs radar xD
NASA report? How bad do you need to screw up to get NASA involved?
NASA was chosen as an outside agent since the FAA and NTSB would run an investigation they couldn’t be impartial third party.
Must make it convenient for filing reports on their shuttles though,ie “Well, we learned to trust our engineers when they say the O-rings are not rated for a cold weather launch. There was no way to anticipate this outcome. So live and learn, no harm done, right?” (Too soon?)
Always too soon.
Think it’s tine to change hosting – we’re bouncing off the limits, and it’s after Midnight Pacific – 0726 Zulu
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