Page 11 - Volume 12 Number 12

Is an ASRS Report con dential?
So long as there is no criminal or accident investigation, then yes, the contents of the report are not released to the FAA. Criminal matters are referred to the Department of Justice, and accidents are referred to the NTSB, and in those cases the full contents of the report may be disclosed.
What exactly do “inadvertent” and “not deliberate” mean?
Does this mean I can only le every ve years?
Absolutely not. This is a common misconception about ASRS Reports. You can file a report after each and every flight you wish; so long as you are not filing about criminal offenses or accidents. What may be causing the confusion is that the immunity benefit of filing the ASRS is only granted once every 5 years.
File early and often. KA
Notes:
1 https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/report/caveat.html?formType=general
2 See NTSB form 6120.1 for the distinction between an “accident” and merely an “incident”
3 Ferguson v. NTSB, 678 F. 2d 821 (9th Cir. 1982).
4 Boeta v FAA, 831 F.3d 636 (5th Cir. 2016)
5 Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum, which allows aircraft to y above FL280 in U.S. airspace.
Scott Williams, Esq. represents buyers and sellers
in aircraft transactions, and provides FAA certi cate enforcement defense to all pilots. He is a pilot and panel attorney for AOPA’s Pilot Protection Services. Scott is a member of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Organization’s Board of Directors and currently serves as its vice president. He can be reached at swilliams@ smallbusinesslaw.org or (805) 778-0206.
It is rare for the FAA to allege that a violation of a FAR was “deliberate.” An example of deliberate would be knowing full well that your airplane was out of annual but you kept flying it anyway. For years, the FAA asserted the position that most violations were not “inadvertent” because the pilot knew or should have known that what they were doing was wrong. This standard was (thankfully) changed in the pilot’s favor in a recent landmark case. It centered on whether an aircraft did or did not have the appropriate certification to fly RVSM authorization, and more importantly, whether the pilot was supposed to know better. An NTSB Administrative Law Judge found a violation and issued a 60-day suspension, which was upheld by the full NTSB. In reversing, the Boeta case held that while the violation still occurred, the NTSB had been “arbitrary and capricious” in denying the pilot the sanctions protection of a timely filed ASRS Report.
DECEMBER 2018
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 9