The Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition recommended 13 actions to prevent unapproved parts from getting installed on aircraft. Robert Sumwalt, the coalition’s co-chair, talks with Aviation Week’s Lee Ann Shay about priorities for the industry and feedback since the report's release.
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Transcript
Lee Ann Shay:
Welcome to the MRO Podcast. I'm Lee Ann Shay, Executive Editor for MRO and Business Aviation for Aviation Week and today's subject, unapproved parts.
As background for today's discussion, in June of 2023, TAP Air Portugal flagged a CFM56 engine part from AOG Technics that didn't seem to match its paperwork, and Safran quickly confirmed the paperwork was falsified. The engine aftermarket then uncovered 95 parts with falsified documents that impacted more than a hundred CFM56 and GE CF6 engines. In other words, the system largely worked, but there was a gap.
To find ways to prevent these kind of parts from entering the market again, a group of eight companies, Airbus, American Airlines, Boeing, Delta Air Lines, GE Aerospace, Safran, Standard Aero and United Airlines, formed the Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition in February of 2024.
Robert Sumwalt, a co-chair of the coalition, is here to discuss the coalition's 13 recommendations. Robert also is the executive director of the Boeing Center for Aviation and Aerospace Safety at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University and is the former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. So in other words, he has a lot of experience conducting in-depth investigations.
Robert, welcome.
Robert Sumwalt:
Lee Ann, it's great to be with you, and you left out an important part, that I'm also a contributing writer to your wonderful publications.
Lee Ann Shay:
That is true, and we very much appreciate that. You are one busy person.
Robert, you and the coalition members interviewed 38 subject matter experts from 24 companies and associations in a matter of months. What was that process like, and how quickly did common themes start to emerge from that research?
Robert Sumwalt:
Well, it really was a group effort. The whole team coalesced, and we realized that there really was a need to improve processes. Generally, these processes worked very well, but every now and then you're going to have a rogue actor that's going to try and do something illegally.
So the team did come together. We met every other Thursday and discussed these issues. It did become apparent pretty early on that there were some common themes that were emerging, and we pretty much agreed that we needed to focus on three major areas.
Lee Ann Shay:
The coalition recommended 13 actions that are divided into short-term, medium-term and long-term. I should point out the long-term is like five years or so, so it's not super long-term and obviously, all 13 are really important, but are there some that you think are critical for the industry to implement?
Robert Sumwalt:
You know, that's a great question, and I would hate to just single out any one or two recommendations because there really is no one solution taken collectively. That's what we have to do is take all these recommendations collectively, and that is what will help form a better safety net for us.
Lee Ann Shay:
Okay. Well, digitizing parts documentation and enabling broader parts tracking through technology seems to be a few key recommendations that kind of weave between some of them. What are the next steps that the coalition is taking to promote this?
Robert Sumwalt:
Well, we're off to a good start. We've already had over 300 people to download the report, and so I think that's a good step.
Just yesterday, the co-chair, John Porcari, and I sent out a letter to various stakeholders to promote the necessity to start implementing these recommendations. We're talking to stakeholders in the industry, a lot of the alphabet groups, so we think that we're off to a good start.
Lee Ann Shay:
Can you elaborate on that? How are companies going to implement these things?
This is all volunteer, I should have prefaced this. None of these recommendations are regulatory-driven, right? They're all volunteer things that companies can do.
Robert Sumwalt:
You're exactly right, and we think that's key at this point, is they are voluntary recommendations. We're calling for voluntary implementation of this.
You know, somebody asked me, "Well, why not make them regulatory?" Well, I've been involved in aviation for five decades now, and some of the most successful aviation safety programs that I've witnessed and been a part of have been those that are voluntary. We look at LOSA, Line Operations Safety Audit, FOQA, Flight Operational Quality Assurance, ASAP programs, all of these are voluntary safety programs, and they've worked very well.
We also know that the regulatory process is very slow, and it can take years to get something like this mandated. So we wanted to go ahead and just start out with recommending voluntary implementation.
Lee Ann Shay:
Since the coalition released its recommendations last week, what feedback have you heard?
Robert Sumwalt:
We’ve certainly gotten a lot of play in the media, which we appreciate, and you're certainly a part of that, Lee Ann, through your Aviation Week Network. But we're getting good feedback. We plan to brief members of Congress and other stakeholders, such as the NTSB, and even the Department of Justice.
Lee Ann Shay:
So as a takeaway, what is the one thing that people should know about, if you're like, "Hey, take action. Do this," in addition to reading the report?
Robert Sumwalt:
Well, look at the recommendations and implement them, and certainly let's talk about, if you don't mind, what buckets we have them in. There are three buckets. You've already mentioned that they're divided over short-term, medium-term and long-term implementation plans.
But vendor accreditation, we've got to have. We recommend that the suppliers use only vendors that have been accredited by an accrediting authority. The FAA has an advisory circular. It's an AC 00-56Bravo that outlines how an organization can become an accrediting body. But we want to make sure that parts suppliers have gone through when they're accrediting product and have met those standards. So we think that that's important.
We also recommend that there become a feedback channel so when somebody suspects perhaps a rogue actor, that we could share that information through this feedback channel with, "Hey, just got a part from such and such supplier, they claimed it was a new part, but it is obviously a used part." So vendor accreditation is important.
Document traceability and verification, that's important. And also parts, non-serialized parts traceability. We've got to know the provenance of these parts. We've got to know the lineage of these parts. Where did they come from? What are they made from? Who made it? How old is it? Is it new? Is it used? So all of these things combined will help us to form a stronger safety net.
Lee Ann Shay:
That sounds good. We encourage our listeners to download that report if you haven't already done so, and this really has to be an industry-wide global effort, right?
Robert Sumwalt:
Totally agree. We do want voluntary implementation. That is an industry-wide effort that you see. We have, as you pointed out, the members of the coalition were from, you've got competing organizations, you've got Airbus and Boeing. They're both on the coalition. You've got airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines and United. So a lot of competing organizations came together to come up with these recommendations.
Lee Ann Shay:
Well, Robert, thank you for co-chairing this coalition. It sounds like these ae things that the industry really should rally behind.
Robert Sumwalt:
We agree. Thanks so much, Lee Ann, for having us today.
Lee Ann Shay:
Robert, thank you for your insights.
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