FAA Press Release Analysis

FAA Press Release Analysis The author of this report has been asked to take a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) press release and analyze it. Rather than just identifying and summarizing what is present, the author of this report is to draw conclusions and analyze precisely what was going on, what was ostensibly not going on and what could have caused all of the above. The basic points to be covered, per the assignment, is the basic results of the analysis (e.g.

percentages, etc.), an analysis of the company-owned material and the training issues raised by the list along with associated explanations that justify the same. While the FAA is often criticized and lampooned, their intentions and performance are usually good and their fines are typically extremely justified. Analysis The author of this report will first look at many of the individual items in the press release list and will then offer broader conclusions and summaries of what is going on.

When it comes to the first item, there seemed to be a mix of excess aircraft parts but some of the cartons (not quite half of them) contained oxygen generators. The second item was similar (and it occurred on the same day) in that there was an unexpended oxygen generator. The next few shipments talk about items that are leaking. Throughout the rest of the items (more than one-hundred twenty-five in total), there are tons of references to either leaking or the mishandling of oxygen generators or other equipment.

Of course, oxygen is extremely explosive (DOT, 2015). In analyzing the document as a whole, it is clear that the ground handling employees were involved, in whole or in part, with a lot of what was going on. Indeed, the phrase "ground handling employees" occurred 79 times in the document under review. This is more than half of the overall items. The word "leak" or some variation thereof occurs about 78 times. This is also more than half given that half would be about 63 instances out of the whole group.

UPS is also mentioned many times in the report, although it is sometimes mentioned more than once in the same action item. In total, UPS is mentioned 112 times. FedEx is also mentioned prominently and commonly but only about a third of the time that UPS is mentioned, with a total of 46 mentions. The word "oxygen" only occurs a total of 24 times, per a simple "find" query in Microsoft Word.

Less prominent words that are not highlighted already include corrosive (eight times), toxic (once), hazardous (forty-four times) and the list goes on. There are some clearly flaws in how these people are doing their jobs. By "these people," the author is referring to the ground crew, FedEx, UPS and airline personnel in general. Items are either being shipped damaged, are being shipped when they should not be shipped at all and/or items are not clearly being marked or secured.

To be fair, not all of the instances were entirely the fault of the personnel. However, passengers and outside sources sometimes do dumb things and they should be caught. The case of Roy Weston with the shipment of gasoline and a generator would be a perfect example (item 29). The vendors (like.