The FAA’s ATSAP program a voluntary, non-punitive system through which controllers can report safety incidents has the potential to enhance safety, but system improvements are needed before the Agency can realize expected benefits. Other priorities that the FAA must continue to address are controller fatigue, runway incursions, and wildlife hazards. Two significant safety-related challenges also remain: (1) FAA’s progress in developing a safety data analysis system to proactively identify risk, and (2) introducing Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into U.S. airspace. 

FAA statistics indicate that reported operational errors when required separation is lost due to a controller error rose by 53 percent between fiscal years 2009 and 2010. While total operational errors remained at these levels in 2010 and 2011, the most serious reported errors, those in which a collision was barely avoided, continued to increase, from 37 in fiscal year 2009, to 43 in fiscal year 2010, and 55 in fiscal year 2011. Further, since the beginning of fiscal year 2012, both the total and most serious number of reported operational errors appears to have increased. 

However, the reason these increases occurred is unknown. According to the FAA, the increases are the result, in part, of its increased use of data in the Traffic Analysis and Review Program (TARP) an automated system for detecting loss of separation incidents at terminal locations. In January 2012, the FAA issued new policies and procedures for collecting, investigating, and reporting all separation losses. However, their effectiveness is limited by incomplete data and the lack of an accurate baseline on the number of separation losses.