FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION National Policy
ORDER 8000.373
Effective Date: 06/26/15
SUBJ: Federal Aviation Administration Compliance Philosophy
1. Purpose of This O~;der. , This order sets forth the Federal Aviation Administration Compliance Philosophy as the overarching guidance for implementing the FAA's strategic safety oversight approach to meet the challenges of today's rapidly changing aerospace system.
z. Audience. This order applies to the compliance and enforcement programs and
activities of all FAA offices that have regulatory responsibilities. These offices include the Flight Standards Service, Aircraft Certification Service, Office of Aerospace Medicine, Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service, Office of Airports, Office of Security and Hazardous Materials Safety, and Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
3. Where Can I Find This Order. You can find this order on the MyFAA Employee Web site: https://employees.faa.govftools_resourcesforders_noticesf. This order is available to the public at htt;p: //www.faa.goy/regulations policies/orders notices/.
4. Compliance Philosophy ,
a. The FAA establishes regulatory standards to ensure safe operations in the National Airspace System. The FAA's safety system is largely based on, and dependent upon, voluntary compliance with these regulatory standards.
b. The aviation and aerospace communities have a statutory obligation to comply with established regulatory standards. This obligation includes a duty to develop and use processes and procedures that will prevent deviation from regulatory standards.
c. To promote the highest level of safety and compliance with regulatory standards, the FAA is implementing Safety Management System constructs based on comprehensive safety data sharing between the FAA and the aviation community. To foster this open and transparent exchange of data, the FAA believes that its compliance philosophy, supported by an established safety culture, is instrumental in ensuring both compliance with regulations and the identification of hazards and management of risk.
d. When deviations from regulatory standards do occur, the FAA's goal is to use the most effective means to return an individual or entity that holds an FAA certificate, approval, authorization, permit or license to full compliance and to prevent recurrence
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e. The FAA recognizes that some deviations arise from factors such as flawed procedures, simple mistakes, lack of understanding, or diminished skills. The Agency believes that deviations of this nature can most effectively be corrected through root cause analysis and training, education or other appropriate improvements to procedures or training programs for regulated entities, which are documented and verified to ensure effectiveness. However, reluctance or failure in adopting these methods to remediate deviations or instances of repeated deviations might result in enforcement.
f. The FAA views those intentional or reckless deviations from regulatory standards, as defined in the Agency's safety oversight guidance, or deviations from regulatory standards that otherwise present an unacceptable risk to safety, as posing the highest risk to safe operation of the NAS, and thus requiring strong enforcement.
g. Matters involving competence or qualification of certificate, license or permit holders will be addressed with appropriate remedial measures, which might include retraining or enforcement.
h. Regulatory violations involving law enforcement-related activities may be addressed with enforcement. In addition, legal enforcement will be taken when required bylaw.