Status: COMPLETED

Background

The purpose of this Safety Enhancement is to improve the safety of non-standard flight, non-revenue operations (functional check flights, ferry flights, demonstration flights, etc.) To reduce accidents and incidents due to loss of airplane state awareness during high risk maneuvers in functional check flights, as well as in other non-standard, non-revenue flight operations:

1. Regulators should specify types of non-standard, non-revenue flights an air carrier is authorized to perform
2. Air Carriers should perform an operational risk assessment for non-standard, non-revenue flight operations and develop related operational and training guidelines.

A Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) study of 18 loss-of-control events identified one accident in which flight crew members were not adequately prepared for a high risk test maneuver performed during a functional check flight.

Related Implementation Plan

Detailed Implementation Plan

Related Outputs

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published Information for Operators (InFO) 16006, Non-Revenue Flight Procedures. This completes Output 1 of the Safety Enhancement.