FAA Tip Line

[pilot370]

Has anyone made a call to the 1800flysafe number to report and unsafe situations about operators unsafe maintanence practices? I assume they don't take your name or anything. If you have made a call what was the outcome and was it about the company you work for or another one?

 

[frank rizzo]

The hotline is a Public Relations scam its there just for the sake of giving the public the warm fuzzy feeling. I know several people that have called in and they have received no response or action at their carrier.

 

[JAFI]

When you call the hotline you will be talking to a regional Hotline manager who will take the information you give. Every call has a reference number attached to your call. Write it down so if you call back they can reference your call in the thousands of calls made. You can give your name and contact number, you may specify to only give your number to the hotline manager and tell them you will only talk to them and not release your name and number to the FSDO, or you may choose not to give a name and contact number at all - your choice. Some suggestions:

1. Be Specific with as many facts as you can get. Just saying that so and so is unsafe will not get very far. If there is only a "Single Source" of information, nothing to back up (document or prove) what you say then very little can be done. Rules of evidence still apply.

2. Some people call only to "get back at" a person or operator or just cause them some heartache. These are usually vague statements with little information to back up a claim. So read suggestion number one again.

3. Be patient. Sometimes it takes time to put a case together or correct a situation. Sometimes things get better when we arrive and start asking questions and sometimes it takes a more proactive approach.

4. If you do not like the answer you get, you can always elevate your concern to a higher part of the system or contact your elected representative. Again, if you want better results re-read suggestion number one.

Hotline calls come in all the time. The vast majority are calls like "a little airplane flew over my house and missed it by just 10 feet. It was last week sometime in the morning" (note no aircraft color, tail number, time or even day of incident). Some times a call is much easier to track down. One call "an aircraft flew over my house and dropped a part in my back yard" began a back yard search that produced a part with a serial number traced to a specific aircraft.


JAFI

 

[dsee8driver]

The hotline is a Public Relations scam its there just for the sake of giving the public the warm fuzzy feeling. I know several people that have called in and they have received no response or action at their carrier.

I would disagree with your statement. A year or 2 ago some guys here called the hotline and said the company was "ALLEGEDLY" violating the 8/24 rule with their interpretation and scheduling the crews. A few months later we got a message from the company regarding the call and the correct interpretation of the rule and guess what, the schedules were changed.

The hotline was called again on a different occasion regarding the Int'l 12/24 rule. We again heard it from the company on "How dissapointed they were someone called since they were already looking into it." Turned out the Feds snooped enough and figured out company was right and actually busted some guys. They were breaking the 12/24 rule BECAUSE flightplans were done at M.82 to b e legal and crews were flying at M.80.

So it works. MAke sure you are correct on your complain.

 

[NuGuy]

Agreed. The FAA is legallly bound to investigate calls they receive. At one place I worked, we had a resident who lived next to the airport complain that our aircraft were unairworthy because "they have a hard time starting them, and they belch smoke".

FAA AMIs came out, asked some questions, looked at the airplanes a bit, and left.

Nu