CAPITOL HILL — IMPROVING AIRLINE SAFETY STANDARDS is a goal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act that the U.S. House of Representatives passed on Wednesday, May 15. Brooklyn Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-11), who had co-sponsored provisions of this bill, praised the tremendous bipartisan and bicameral support it received. Having passed both the Senate and the House, the bill is expected to get President Biden’s signature before a deadline this Friday. The legislative package specifically includes language from the Global Aircraft Maintenance Safety Improvement Act, and will create one level of safety for aircraft maintenance work by establishing: drug and alcohol testing for safety-sensitive personnel; background checks for workers at maintenance facilities; security threat assessments for foreign facilities; unannounced inspections for maintenance operations; and minimum qualifications for aircraft mechanics. Prompting the bill was the alarm that American mechanics, technicians, and pilots raised over poor and incorrectly performed maintenance on aircrafts serviced at foreign facilities. They saw critical engine components being held together with tape and wire; exterior doors installed incorrectly, leading to mid-flight cabin depressurization; aircraft covered with flammable paint; and even drug smuggling in aircraft noses, wheel wells, avions and lavatory panels.
More than 900 FAA-certified maintenance and repair stations are stationed outside the United States, however, these are not required to meet the same standards as their U.S. counterparts.
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New York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.